Award Data

New, innovative laser spectroscopy technology will be developed for performance quantification and combustion characterization in a Rotational Detonation Rocket Engine (RDRE). The effort will push the state of the art in tunable laser absorption spectroscopy to enable fast time response diagnostics of the extreme pressure and temperature conditions of an RDRE.

We propose to develop an innovative, traveling-wave tube amplifier (TWTA) compatible with three-dimensional (3D) micro-electro-mechanical systems (MEMS) fabrication techniques for submillimeter-wave applications. The development will focus on a novel, interaction circuit; long life, high current density electron guns; compact power supplies; and compact magnet configurations providing compact, lig ...

Kyma Technologies will team with North Carolina State University to develop growth techniques using the hydride vapor phase epitaxy technique to fabricate large area non-polar GaN substrates. Using high quality non-polar seed crystals developed during the Phase I effort, the HVPE growth process will be optimized to increase the GaN crystal size and result in large area substrates. Kyma will perfor ...

This project addresses the U.S. Air Force needs for single-piece, electronically dimmable eye protection device (EDEPD). Toward demonstrating the proof-of-principle, InnoSense LLC (ISL) in Phase I developed and evaluated individual layer components and their stacked structures. ISL also demonstrated the fabrication processes for individual-layer components, stacked structures and the scale-up pote ...

Structural Health Monitoring (SHM) can be reliably used to perform on-line health monitoring of any type of structures with minimal human involvement. Current SHM systems can perform the functions required but are heavy, bulky and difficult to integrate with the structure to provide on-board real-time structural integrity assessment. Embedding of currently available sensors and electronics used by ...

To a large extent, Carbon Fiber Reinforced Polymer (CFRP) composites have become the material of choice in modern aircraft design, due to their high strength-to-weight ratio, corrosion immunity and fatigue properties. Many primary structure components (e.g. bulkheads, stabilizers, wing boxes), where an aluminum skin was previously joined to a metallic airframe by fasteners, adhesives or welding, h ...

Carbon-carbon (C-C) composites are used in the fabrication of aeroshells and thermal protection systems (TPS) in hypersonic and atmospheric reentry applications because they maintain their strength at elevated temperatures and have desirable thermal conductivity properties. Although these materials have been used in mission-critical components for decades, the effects of variations in processing m ...

Advanced imaging techniques and, novel intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR) methods are of great interest to the U.S. Air Force and other Department of Defense (DoD) agencies, but associated high-costs of III-V and II-VI MWIR and SWIR materials prohibit their practical widespread deployment and integration with other optoelectronic devices. In this program, we intend to investigate ...

Current scene projection hardware is challenged to simultaneously meet the requirements for high peak temperature (> 2000K), high resolution (2Kx2K), response time < 4 ms, cryogenic and temporally uniform photon flux. MEMS, Resistor arrays, liquid crystals, and photonic crystals all suffer in one or more areas. MEMS suffer from flicker and low dynamic range. Resistor arrays suffer from low frame r ...

We propose a compact, monolithic, power scalable, hollow core fiber-gas laser emitting in the atmospheric transmission region in the mid-IR, titled "mid-IR ATLAS." The proposed optically pumped fiber-gas laser system is efficient, has a small footprint as well broad spectral coverage in the mid-IR. Due to the unique approach employed, the proposed technology allows generation of mid-IR output with ...