Stray-light and diffraction suppression is critical to NASA instrumentation because it improves signal to noise and observational efficiency in high contrast regions present in Earth, solar and coronagraphic applications. The PI and ANP/LC have delivered a large variety of instrument components including, baffles, stops, tubes and beam dumps. Development of a process compatible with reflective coatings and high quality optics for this SBIR, will enable an entirely new class of components and instrumentation for scientific observations. NASA requires calibrators for all manner of instruments to allow scientific data to be of the highest accuracy. On-mirror diffraction suppression is enabling for e-LISA as the telescope is used in duplex and requires extreme suppression of the the high power transmitted beam. This is also a challenge in Laser Communications and of great interest to NASA that will be addressed by this SBIR. Carbon nanotubes have the highest emissivity ever measured and arenearly ideal in this respect. We expect that further enhancement of the rob ustness of carbon nanotube coatings demonstrated in this SBIR will result in the use of this technology on more NASA instruments. The PI has built and tested carbon nanotube absorber thermal detectors with superconducting transition edge detectors; a modified CVD process will make the use of carbon nanotube absorbers compatible with more detector technologies.
During Phase I of this SBIR we developed coatings and chemical vapor deposition processes compatible with high surface quality single crystal silicon mirrors. Phase II will continue optimization of these optical components for NASA and commercial use. We believe that this technology can be applied to autonomous vehicle imaging where stringent stray light control is required to enable robust operation in challenging lighting conditions. In addition, success during Phase I has initiated collaborative efforts with the Swatch group, who are interested in patterning nanotubes on gold or silver coated substrates for high end watches. Advanced Nanophotonics, Inc. is also collaborating with the technical arm of Universal Studios to deliver samples of ultradark nanotube coatings for use in special effects.
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