Naomi Cooper
The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency has unveiled a new program to develop novel tunable optical materials operating across multiple spectral ranges in the visible and mid and long-wave infrared electromagnetic spectrum bands.
DARPA said Wednesday the Accelerating Discovery of Tunable Optical Materials program seeks to use advancements in artificial intelligence to discover and develop tunable materials for applications that require fast-switching speeds.
The tunable optical materials developed under the program must enable “low-loss, high-switching-speed free-space optics, integrated photonics and emissivity control applications.”
ATOM is divided into two 12-month phases: a discovery phase and an optional demonstration phase.
Program participants under Phase I will use materials discovery and predictive modeling tools to identify and characterize tunable optical materials.
Phase II will focus on the experimental demonstration of the new material as a switchable film over greater than 10 switching states.
