Functional Materials and Devices
Abstract
The Functional Materials and Devices thrust will address problems with high performance functional materials development. Functional materials deployed for applications are most often bulk structures and performance is limited to those properties found in nature. Improved materials require deliberate control at the scale of the relevant phenomena (electron transport, phonon transport, etc.). This thrust will leverage the advanced fabrication capabilities currently available, coupled with design of material and structure, to drive functional materials to high performance for DoD applications by design. Thermoelectric materials for cooling and power generation, and IR emissive materials are examples of near-term materials in which design of structure at the scale of the critical phenomena can have significant impact on their performance. To eliminate the ISR capability gap that currently exists at the soldier-scale, capability will be developed to provide high space/time resolution (mm/ms) throughout the soldier-scale 4 sphere of influence (km/min) by developing task-specific functionality (e.g. hands-free zoom, automated brightness adjustment, threat detection, targeting assistance, change detection, supplementary data overlay, etc.). This thrust will also explore newly emerging areas where structure may play an important role, but has not been fully exploited yet, such as hybrid nanocomposite materials, plasmonics, phononics, and superconductors.
Document Details
- Document Type
- Accomplishment
- Publication Date
- Oct 01, 2012
- Source ID
- cd78150318fae0b1c53038fed3ffb5f1