Award Data

The objective of the proposed program is to address the high service costs of the current U.S. Navy fleet of aircraft by developing a distributed optical fiber sensor system that will help reduce the costs associated with corrosion damage and extend the lifetime of existing aircraft. Annual corrosion of Navy metallic structures has been estimated as high as $1 billion. Additional costs aris ...

This DARPA SBIR Phase I project will demonstrate the feasibility of revolutionary ionic self-assembly methods of creating electric field-tunable thin-film electronic materials and devices. Exciting recent work at F&S and Virginia Tech has shown that the ionic nature of the self-assembly process inherently results in the spontaneous regular geometric ordering of noncentrosymmetric dipole molecules. ...

F&S and their research partners propose a comprehensive plan to develop a fiber optic-ased chemical detection system for the quantification of metal contaminants in aviation fuel. The system will utilize recently developed long-period grating (LPG) technology which detects index-of-refraction changes resulting from target molecules binding to affinity coatings. Calculations based on experimental ...

This program will develop methods for the design and synthesis of novel nanocomposite materials having self-assembled monolayer coatings for defense applications. Synthesis will be based on the combination of low-cost powder processing invented by NASA, and ionic self-assembled monolayer (ISAM) methods invented at Virginia Tech. F&S has exclusive licenses to both enabling patents. The powder pr ...

Novel ionic self-assembled monolayer (ISAM) processes for the fabrication of advanced electronic materials and devices will be developed through this program. Revolutionary ISAM methods to create nanostructured multi-layer inorganic/organic thin-films offer major advantages over conventional manufacturing processes, since the process is simple, low-cost and environmentally friendly in that no vola ...

F&S and Virginia Tech will cooperatively develop high performance protective ionic self-assembled monolayer (ISAM) organic/inorganic coatings for space-based optical and structural components, and work with Litton to upscale practical coating manufacturing. Revolutionary ISAM methods of creating multi-layer protective nanopartwcle films offer major advantages over con-ventional coating processes, ...

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Bends in waveguides are a problem for high-voltage Ultra-Wideband (UWB) systems. The difficulty arises because only a straight section of standard transmission line can support a pure TEM mode. And a pure TEM mode is necessary to preserve the risetime of the transmitted impulse. When there is a bend in the waveguide, the transmitted signal is a broader impulse than the incident signal. This ca ...