Briefs: Physical Sciences
A compact windscreen has been conceived for a microphone of a type used outdoors to detect atmospheric infrasound from a variety of natural and man-made sources. Wind at the microphone site contaminates received...
Briefs: Physical Sciences
Holographic glass light-shaping diffusers (GLSDs) are optical components for use in special-purpose illumination systems (see figure). When properly positioned with respect to lamps and areas...
Briefs: Physical Sciences
A method of determining the position and attitude of a body equipped with a Global Positioning System (GPS) receiver includes an accounting for the location of the nonunique phase...
Briefs: Physical Sciences
A standalone, handheld, through-wall radar unit is under development to provide three-dimensional feedback on the location and movement of people inside buildings. Applications include...
Briefs: Physical Sciences
Optical-Electrical-Optical (OEO) wavelength translation (WT) based on small-form-factor pluggable (SFP) transceivers is meeting with increased...
Briefs: Physical Sciences
Internal heating is a key issue for vertical cavity surface emitting lasers (VCSELs), a semiconductor microlaser diode that emits light in a cylindrical beam vertically from the surface of a...
Briefs: Physical Sciences
A broadband external-cavity diode laser (ECDL) has been invented for use in spectroscopic surveys preparatory to optical detection of gases. Heretofore, commercially available ECDLs have been designed,...
Briefs: Physical Sciences
Solar photovoltaic cells would be designed to exploit photonic-bandgap (PBG) materials to enhance their energy- conversion efficiencies, according to a proposal. Whereas the...
Briefs: Physical Sciences
Solid-Phase Extraction of Polar Compounds From Water
A solid-phase extraction (SPE) process has been developed for removing alcohols, carboxylic acids, aldehydes, ketones, amines, and other polar organic compounds from water. This process can be either a subprocess of a water-reclamation process or a means of extracting organic compounds from...
Briefs: Physical Sciences
A multistage system has been proposed for cooling a circulating fluid that is subject to intermittent intense heating. The system would be both flexible and redundant in that it could...
Briefs: Physical Sciences
The Mars Electrostatics Chamber (MEC) is an environmental chamber designed primarily to create atmospheric conditions like those at the surface of Mars to support experiments on electrostatic...
Briefs: Physical Sciences
Laser gauges have been developed to satisfy requirements specific to monitoring the amplitude of the motion of an optical path- length modulator that is part of an astronomical...
Briefs: Physical Sciences
Estimating Aeroheating of a 3D Body Using a 2D Flow Solver
A method for rapidly estimating the aeroheating, shear stress, and other properties of hypersonic flow about a three-dimensional (3D) blunt body has been devised. First, the geometry of the body is specified in Cartesian coordinates. The surface of the body is then described by its...
Briefs: Physical Sciences
Recent advances in fiber technology have enabled a dramatic increase in the power delivered from fiber based amplifiers and lasers. This is particularly true at the 1060-nm...
Briefs: Physical Sciences
Improved Electrolytic Hydrogen Peroxide Generator
An improved apparatus for the electrolytic generation of hydrogen peroxide dissolved in water has been developed. The apparatus is a prototype of H2O2 generators for the safe and effective sterilization of water, sterilization of equipment in contact with water, and other...
Briefs: Physical Sciences
Three optical gauges have been developed for guiding the assembly and measuring precisely the reflecting surfaces of a compound mirror that comprises a corner-cube retroreflector glued...
Briefs: Physical Sciences
Verifying the Safety of a Radioactive Waste Container With Simulation Software
As part of decommissioning the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) Hanford Site — an inactive nuclear facility in southeastern Washington — a contaminated apparatus called a glovebox (a steel isolation chamber with built-in gloves that allow personnel to remotely...
Briefs: Physical Sciences
A recently developed mathematical model of the output (displacement) versus the input (applied voltage) of a piezoelectric transducer accounts for hysteresis. For the sake of computational speed,...
Briefs: Physical Sciences
A family of iron-nickel and ironnickel- cobalt alloys made using metal injection technology (MIT) has been designed to match the coefficient of thermal expansion (CTE) of...
Briefs: Physical Sciences
Controlling Laser Spot Size in Outer Space
Three documents discuss a method of controlling the diameter of a laser beam projected from Earth to any altitude ranging from low orbit around the Earth to geosynchronous orbit. Such laser beams are under consideration as means of supplying power to orbiting spacecraft at levels of the order of tens...
Briefs: Physical Sciences
Thin-film heat-flux sensors of a proposed type would offer advantages over currently available thin-film heat flux sensors. Like a currently available thin-film heat-flux sensor, a sensor according to...
Briefs: Test & Measurement
A technique has been devised for measuring the relative humidity levels in the protective helium/water vapor atmosphere in which the Declaration of Independence, the United States Constitution,...
Briefs: Physical Sciences
Thermal Imaging of Earth for Accurate Pointing of Deep-Space Antennas
A report discusses a proposal to use thermal (long-wavelength infrared) images of the Earth, as seen from spacecraft at interplanetary distances, for pointing antennas and telescopes toward the Earth for Ka-band and optical communications.
Briefs: Physical Sciences
Shock Waves in a Bose-Einstein Condensate
A paper presents a theoretical study of shock waves in a trapped Bose-Einstein condensate (BEC).
Briefs: Physical Sciences
Code for Analyzing and Designing Spacecraft Power System Radiators
A specific application is for Stirlingcycle/linear-alternator electric-power systems coupled to radioisotope general-purpose heat sources. GPHRAD affords capabilities and options to account for thermophysical properties (thermal conductivity, density) of either metal-alloy or...
Briefs: Electronics & Computers
Devices called “solid-state ferroelectric-based sources” (SSFBSs) are under development as sources of electrons, ions, ultraviolet light, and x-rays for diverse applications in...
Briefs: Physical Sciences
A dusty-plasma apparatus is being investigated as means of accelerating nanometer- and micrometer-sized particles. Applications for the dusty-plasma particle accelerators fall into two classes:
Briefs: Physical Sciences
Briefs: Physical Sciences
An improved miniature time-of-flight mass spectrometer has been developed in a continuing effort to minimize the sizes, weights, power demands, and costs of mass spectrometers for such...
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