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Photonics

Infrared detectors enable Night Vision Devices, Robotic servicing mission to military missile tracking

Remote sensing is the science of acquiring information about the Earth’s surface without actually being in contact with it.  This is done by sensing and recording reflected or emitted energy and processing, analyzing, and applying that information. Some examples of remote sensing are special cameras on satellites and airplanes taking …

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Emerging ultrashort pulse laser (USPL) or Femtosecond laser directed energy weapons (DEW)

The Laser Directed Energy Weapons (DEWs) offer a transformational ‘game changer’ to counter asymmetric and disruptive threats, while facing increasingly sophisticated traditional challenges. Laser technology provides major advantages for military applications over kinetic weapons due to High precision and rapid on-target effect, precise and scalable effects,  avoidance of collateral damage …

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Thermophotonics cooling with light-emitting diodes

Thermophotonics (often abbreviated as TPX) is a concept for generating usable power from heat which shares some features of thermophotovoltaic (TPV) power generation. Thermophotonics was first publicly proposed by solar photovoltaic researcher Martin Green in 2000. However, no TPX device is known to have been demonstrated to date, apparently because …

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Anti-Reflection (AR) Coatings

Optics are employed in virtually every area of military operations, from vision systems and target designators used by troops on the ground, through guidance systems utilized in both manned and unmanned aircraft, to reconnaissance and surveillance packages carried by satellites in Earth orbit. These optics are often subjected to large …

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Quantum enhanced LIDAR will help reduce environmentally damaging methane leaks from the oil and gas industry

In purely economic terms, methane leaks from well-heads and pipelines cost the oil and gas industry between $6bn and $30bn a year. In the US, methane leaks from the natural gas and petroleum industry are now the number one source of methane emissions, surpassing livestock digestion and landfill. Although it …

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Quantum microwave photonics

By harnessing quantum superposition and entanglement, remarkable progress has sprouted over the past three decades from different areas of research in communication, computation and simulation.   Microwave photonics (MWP) typically using classic optical methods and devices to generate, transport, and process radio-frequency (RF) signals  is a recently developed area of …

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DARPA advances Microwave Photonics for RF signal processing and radars

The military/defense industry continues to encourage the advancement of multifunctional receivers. Yet the demands for higher-frequency operation, increased bandwidth, increased dynamic range, and enhanced sensitivity creates unique design challenges for present technology. Size, weight, power, and cost (SWAP-C) dynamics heavily influence the military/defense industry’s value for a particular technology.   …

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Flash Lidars have applications from Situational awareness, collision avoidance to improved battlefield visualization, line-of-sight analysis and urban warfare planning.

LIDARs are rapidly gaining maturity as very capable sensors for a number of applications such as imaging through clouds, vegetation and camouflage, 3D mapping and terrain visualization, meteorology, navigation, and obstacle avoidance for robotics as well as weapon guidance. LIDAR data is both high-resolution and high-accuracy, enabling improved battlefield visualization, …

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Nanomaterials for protection from laser weapons

Laser attacks targeting pilots and air crews are a major concern across the world with most attacks reported to take place during take-off and landing. According to figures from the US Federal Aviation Authority, there were 6,753 laser illuminations reported in 2017. Until recently, the expense of lasers had limited their use …

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Emerging multiphoton technologies and applications

Photonics is emerging as a multidisciplinary new frontier of science and technology and is capturing the imagination of scientists and engineers worldwide because of its potential applications to many areas of present and future information and image processing technologies. Photonics is the analog of electronics in that it describes the …

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