Jay Clemens
Northrop Grumman will allot $500,000 to fund seven research projects to be conducted at the Northrop Grumman Institute of Nanophotonics and Nanomaterials at the University of Southern California for 2016.
Northrop said Tuesday it worked with USC’s Viterbi School of Engineering to select the projects three months after the partnership inaugurated the institute.
The funded research efforts focus on black phosphorus, nonlinear crystalline materials, plasmonics, single photon sources, thermal homeostasis, nanofabrication and radio-frequency metamaterials.
“Northrop Grumman’s investments in USC and NG-ION2 are part of the company’s commitment to basic research with leading universities to pursue solutions to the nation’s hardest scientific and global security problems,” said Tom Pieronek, vice president of basic research at Northrop’s aerospace systems unit.
Jesse Tice, senior scientist and nanomaterials group lead at Northrop Grumman aerospace systems and a co-director of NG-ION2, added that Northrop and USC scientists and engineers will perform the research activities both at the university and at the company’s Redondo Beach-based Space Park campus.
“The things we learn will help advance our knowledge of critical engineering disciplines such as thermal control,” Tice said.
Northrop established NG-ION2 in March at USC’s Los Angeles campus to help the university and the aerospace industry conduct joint research in advanced optical materials and nanophotonic devices.
Nanophotonics seeks to study the behavior of light on the nanometer level and how nanometer-scale objects interact with light.
