Critical & Emerging Technologies

Precision Guided Munitions (PGMs), and other so-called “smart” weapons, have established themselves as a key military technology against targets whose destruction requires a high degree of precision. PGMs may include Bomb or missile that can be aimed and directed against a single/multi targets, relying on external guidance or its own …

The Electromagnetic Aircraft Launch System (EMALS) is a type of aircraft launching system currently under development by General Atomics for the United States Navy. EMALS uses electrical energy to propel Aircraft by converting electric energy into kinetic energy.  The system launches carrier-based aircraft by means of a catapult employing a …

The United States and Britain in 2018 accused Russia of launching cyber attacks on computer routers, firewalls and other networking equipment used by government agencies, businesses and critical infrastructure operators around the globe. Network infrastructure consists of interconnected devices designed to transport communications needed for data, applications, services, and multi-media. Routers …

Mathematical optimization is a branch of applied mathematics that in the broadest senselooks for best solution with regard to some criterion from some set of available alternatives. The advent of the digital computer and a tremendous subsequent increase in our computational prowess has increased the impact of optimization in our …

In quantum mechanics, spin is an intrinsic form of angular momentum carried by elementary particles. Spintronics is “A branch of physics concerned with the storage and transfer of information by means of electron spins in addition to electron charge as in conventional electronics.” Spin-based electronics focuses on devices whose functionality …

Nanomaterials  are often categorized  based on number of dimensions of a material, which are outside the nanoscale (<100 nm) range. Accordingly, in  one-dimensional nanomaterials (1D), one dimension is outside the nanoscale. This class includes  nanofibers, nanotubes, nanorods, and nanowires. 1D materials are generally considered to be high‐capacity and stable electrode materials, due …

In April 2001, a US Navy surveillance plane was intercepted by two Chinese F-8 fighter planes during a routine patrol flight over the Chinese South Sea. The US plane was forced to make an emergency landing in China, after what officials described as a “minor” midair collision, occurred with one of the Chinese planes. The US …

Finding new materials has traditionally been guided by intuition and trial and error,” said Turab Lookman, a physicist and materials scientist in the Physics of Condensed Matter and Complex Systems group at Los Alamos National Laboratory. “But with increasing chemical complexity, the combination possibilities become too large for trial-and-error approaches …

Modern expeditionary military missions generate and exchange massive amounts of data that are used to produce situational awareness and guide decision-making. Much of the data must travel long distances along backbone communications networks composed of high-capacity links that connect command centers.   Fiber optic cables provide the core backbone for …