Award Data

Combustion stability is an important consideration in the design of liquid rocket engines. While fundamental modes of unstable operation in simple geometries are easily identified using analytical methods, recent times have seen these methods greatly expand in scope, applied in semi-numerical format to increasingly complex geometries and flow situations. Much remains to be explored in understandin ...

The key to making quantum key distribution practical (especially for free-space applications) is to be able to use weak laser pulses (WLP) instead of single photons, while at the same time making sure that any third party wanting to avoid detection and mount an eavesdropping attack is restricted to using beam-splitting rather than photon-number splitting (PNS). In this effort, we propose a novel s ...

The real-time implementation of controls in nonlinear systems remains one of the great challenges in applying advanced control technology. Often, linearization around a set point is the only practical approach, and many controllers implemented in hardware systems are simple PID feedback mechanisms. To apply Pontryagin’s principle or Bellman’s equation using conventional hardware and algorith ...

The ever-decreasing size of the electronic microchips and the ever-increasing density of electronic components required to support future Air Force platforms are creating the problem of substantial localized heat generation that can impair component operation. State of the art thermal interface materials (TIMs), that are used to dissipate heat from the source to the spreader in a microchip, are se ...

Detecting explosives and weapons under clothing or in hand carried packages, and imaging terrain and objects through fog and smoke are two high-priority needs that can be met using light in the Terahertz frequency range. However, to image concealed threats, and aid in navigation in fog and smoke, a practical, low cost THz camera is needed. Intelligent Optical Systems (IOS) in collaboration with Re ...

The objective of Phase I is to identify the strengths and weaknesses of the various multi-reference coupled-cluster (MRCC) methods that have been proposed for the description of molecular states depending upon near degeneracies and non-dynamic electron correlation. Such effects are encountered in bond breaking, at transition states, for complex open shell systems like transition metal atoms, and f ...

The Air Force has a strategic need for a fuel source that is renewable (and which does not rely on foreign petroleum sources). Several approaches to a renewable fuel source have been investigated; with “artificial photosynthesis” being one example. At its core, the photosynthesis reaction is a photoinduced charge separation reaction with light being concentrated by antenna complexes onto a c ...

The occurrence of combustion instability has long been a matter of serious concern in the development of liquid-propellant rocket engines due to the high rate of energy release in a confined volume in which energy losses are relatively small. Shear layer instabilities and intermittent growth rates of the mixing layer cause fluctuations in the burning rates and result in acoustic waves triggering ...

DOLCE Technologies, LLC, in collaboration with Professor Rick Averitt’s research group at Boston University and Eric Shaner’s group at Sandia National Laboratories, will develop and deliver a high performance room-temperature Terahertz detector array solution based on metamaterial absorbers integrated with bi-material cantilevers. The metamaterial approach is frequency scalable and can operat ...

This Small Business Technology Transfer Research phase I program will develop a new class of uncooled THz detectors for the 1-10THz band with a novel design using surface plasmon resonant cavities with integrated metal-insulator-metal tunneling diodes as the detecting element. Tunneling diodes provide ultrafast broadband response, potentially into the visible (300THz), but demonstrated performanc ...