Award Data

Aluminum nitride is as an ideal thermal management material since it has a very high thermal conductivity and its electrical resistivity is comparable to that of ceramic insulators. Aluminum nitride has thermal conductivity five times greater than alumina and has mechanical strength twice that of alumina and beryllium oxide. The current methods of synthesizing and consolidating aluminum nitride re ...

Semiconducting lasers, laser arrays and other diode-laser devices for both military and private sector applications benefit greatly if used in conjunction with isolators capable of preventing reflections from reentering the device. This proposal describes an approach which can be integrated with laser/amplifier semiconducting material system, to produce efficient non-reciprocal magneto-optic isola ...

The primary goal of Phase I work is to demonstrate the feasibility of synthesizing gallium nitride (GaN) powder. Secondarily, this powder will be used to grow high-purity single crystals of GaN from a liquid GaN phase. This would be accomplished using a proprietary variation of the skull melting technique. Since GaN demonstrates peritectic-type decomposition at atmospheric pressure, the entire sku ...

Currently vacuum based methods of PVD and CVD are the only processes for forming GaN thin films and coatings. These methods are usually expensive and are not applied in a production friendly manner. An atmospheric deposition technique that inexpensively and easily applies GaN thin or thick films in an environmentally friendly manner is a priority for any number of DOD and commercial applications. ...

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, ...

Demand for micrometer size metal powders is increasing rapidly as new technologies emerge which can make use of their unique characteristics. One rapidly growing application requiring such powders is metal injection molding, a powder metallurgy process for forming near-net-shape components with higher dimensional accuracy than earlier processes. A significant need also exists for micrometer size s ...

The objective of this Phase I is to develop a high quality, high speed, cost effective technique for polishing silicon carbide mirrors that are machined using single point diamond turning methods. The finished optic should have a more perfectly polished surface with uniform shape and thickness than is presently being produced. We will achieve this by using two different approaches, a novel non-con ...

We propose to design and fabricate an adaptive beam expander that can be switched between two magnifications. Specifically, the beam expander provides diffraction-limited performance for laser radar beams with diameters of 1 mm and 3 mm. The adaptive beam expander is lightweight, and it has no moving parts. Because the beam expander is an afocal system, it operates on both outgoing and incoming be ...

A SELF-REGENERATIVE FEEDBACK TECHNIQUE IS BEING INVESTIGATEDTO SUPPRESS THE FORMATION OF SIDEBANDS THAT LIMIT THE SPECTRAL BRIGHTNESS AND GENERAL PERFORMANCE OF PRESENT HIGH-POWER FREE ELECTRON LASERS (FELS). THIS TECHNIQUE DOES NOT INVOLVE INTRA-CAVITY COMPONENTS THAT SUFFER LOSS DAMAGE DUE TO HIGH POWER OPERATION. A POTENTIAL BREAKTHROUGH IN FEL TECHNOLOGY, ANALYSIS AND SIMULATION ARE BEING PERF ...

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