This New ‘Metamaterial’ Lens Technology Will Change Aerospace

[727Sky]

https://thedebrief.org/this-new-metamate...aerospace/

The first-ever metamaterial lens has been created. Researchers at Cornell University’s Department of Applied Engineering Physics and Samsung’s Advanced Institute of Technology recently proved that the metamaterials lens concept is feasible. The new metamaterials lens is significant because it can be “focused using voltage instead of mechanically moving the component,” Jules Menten writes in the California News-Times, which “opens the door to a range of compact varifocal lenses that can be used in many imaging applications such as satellites, telescopes, and microscopes.” 
Undoubtedly, the emergence of metamaterial lenses will affect future warfighting capabilities. 
Background: What is a ‘metamaterial?’

A metamaterial is defined as an “artificial medium whose properties (mechanical, optical, magnetic, or other) cannot be found in naturally occurring materials.” 
Typically, metamaterials are designed by combining many identical elements that were fashioned from conventional materials. “Think of a Rubik’s cube made of millions of units smaller than the thickness of a human hair,” Science Daily describes.
Metamaterials, which are “engineered with features smaller than the wavelength of light, are an attempt to achieve elusive subwavelength optical technology with unnatural optical properties,” Valerie C. Coffey writes for Photonics Media.
Perhaps, metamaterials will provide an elusive answer to a nagging technological problem. 
“Science has long sought novel or modified materials that could reach beyond the conventional laws of optics to replace bulky glass and polymer optical components with flatter, more robust, lower-cost, stackable ones,” Coffey writes, “to this end, the field of emerging photonics material has grown into a vast, scattered array of promising technologies.” 
Defense-related industries are on notice.
 
Harvard developed a ‘metalens’ in 2018 that could focus on all colors. After that breakthrough, research into these types of lens became a ‘focus.’ (Image: Jared Sisler/Harvard SEAS)
Analysis: How will metamaterials alter the battlefield?

Metamaterials, specifically their capacity to be miniaturized, are sure to attract intense attention from the aerospace community. Indeed, in 2009, the Defense Intelligence Agency issued a report titled Metamaterials for Aerospace Applications. 
“In many instances, metamaterials enable us to considerably minimize sizes of resonators, transmission lines, and so forth,” the DIA report states, “that enables arrangement within sub-wavelength units that can be densely packed and result in strongly miniaturized components.” 
Such miniaturization is what entices aerospace developers. Researchers want to develop metamaterials technology for use in satellites, spacecraft, and drones–anywhere “where space and weight savings are a priority,” Coffey writes.

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The DIA report belies a sense of excitement (explicitly) for metamaterial applications. “In our opinion, the most exciting applications that are relevant for aerospace applications include energy harvesting, developing novel optical devices with unusual yet practically important capabilities (for example, non-reciprocal devices, enhancing the efficiency of nonlinear optical devices, developing novel imaging modalities capable of breaking the diffraction limit (for example, super-lenses, hyper-lenses, far-field super-lenses), and developing novel lithographic techniques.”
For millennia, gathering intelligence has been a primary concern of all warfighters. So without question, defense developers are eagerly awaiting any metamaterial lens breakthroughs that can help lift “the fog of war.” More powerful lenses–placed in satellites or spy planes, or drones–would mean better imaging and increased situational awareness. Metamaterial lenses could help the military know more about perceived enemies.      
Outlook: Welcome to the future?

“Optical metamaterials are still a very new area,” the DIA report states. But, the recent Cornell breakthrough is promising. Mark Brongersma, a materials science professor at Stanford University, believes “numerous industries are ripe for disruption.” In the shorter term, expect the development of metamaterial technology to yield more powerful lenses (which would be incorporated into military technology). In the longer term, metamaterial development could deliver more “far-fetched” technology, like invisibility cloaks or stealth aircraft that are invisible to radar.

[727Sky]

https://thedebrief.org/this-new-metamate...aerospace/

Image: DARPA
New Material Able To Withstand Extreme Temperatures Discovered Totally By Accident
Liam Stewart·June 15, 2021
AerospaceBreaking NewsDefenseTech
An extraordinary and accidental discovery by Australian researchers of a new material that does not contract or expand under extreme temperatures, called ‘zero thermal expansion’ has the potential to revolutionize aerospace and medical technology. It also shatters to pieces what everyone learned about matter in fifth-grade science class.
Background: What is Zero Thermal Expansion?
Zero thermal expansion, often abbreviated as ZTE, is a specific property of a material that relates to the conditions in which the material does not expand or contract in size or volume. Elementary school science curriculum teaches everyone that changes in temperature cause changes in the physical properties of materials, usually in the form of their volume or density. Materials that possess forms of ZTE are extremely rare, and the ones that do only remain in their original state in very specific and small ranges of temperature.
This makes materials with the zero thermal expansion property invaluable in specific applications where temperatures can vary significantly, such as space technology that needs to withstand both extreme heat and extreme cold.
The ZTE property is even rarer in pure materials. It is almost always achieved by a union of different compounds with different expansion or contraction windows in an effort to balance them out to zero at desired temperatures. This can simultaneously make it harder to figure out precisely how certain parts of the compound act under certain conditions.
Analysis: Zero Thermal Expansion in Material Science Can Alter Our Understanding of Aeronautics
Scientists at Australia’s University of New South Wales discovered the new material by accident while researching batteries, where they noticed its extraordinary properties.
The material itself mixes several other compounds: oxygen, aluminum, tungsten, and scandium. Its window for zero thermal expansion is huge. According to the study, the material retains its natural state almost entirely whether it is facing conditions of 4 Kelvin or 1400 K. The former calculates to over -450 degrees Fahrenheit, with the latter reaching over 2000 degrees- hotter than most lava erupting from modern volcanoes.
The researchers are currently unsure what exactly is producing this effect in the new orthorhombic material. University Professor Neeraj Sharma said that the investigation is now focused on the minutia to figure out why the material has these exceptional thermal properties.
“Which part’s acting at which temperature, well, that’s the next question,” Sharma stated. “The scandium is rarer and more costly, but we are experimenting with other elements that might be substituted, and the stability retained.”
 
Hypersonic technology can lose material stability due to extreme temperature change. (Image: ESA)
Outlook: You’re Hot Then You’re Cold…
The applications for materials with zero thermal expansion were already massive, but for materials with as extreme thermal capabilities as this, the future is even brighter. The most obvious place to implement it would be in space-related technology, given its ability to not only be able to withstand and remain constant during both the fires of liftoff and the absolute zero of space.

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Other materials that can reach levels of ZTE do so because of several different compounds working together, but this comes at the cost of the strength of the material- leading them to remain in sound quality for a much shorter period of time. University of New South Wales currently plans to research the material further and with different substitutions, hopefully leading to discoveries of compounds that keep the extreme ZTE window without sacrificing strength. This also applies to aeronautics, as the bitter cold of high-speed winds and the fires of the engines would be nothing compared to the extremes beyond the planet.
Another application comes in the form of medicine, specifically surgical implants in the human body. The potential for implants to expand or contract while inside one’s organs is an incredibly dangerous one, but if materials such as the one the Australian researchers found were to be used, the issue itself has the possibility of being minimized entirely. And if the human body were to reach beyond its 1400 Kelvin ZTE threshold, then there isn’t much anyone could really do for you (or what’s left) anyway.

[F2d5thCav]

The wag in me wonders in which year we recovered this material from a fallen UFO and have now finally learned how to manufacture it ourselves. 

Cheers

[Mystic Wanderer]

The wag in me wonders in which year we recovered this material from a fallen UFO and have now finally learned how to manufacture it ourselves. 

Cheers

I was thinking/wondering the same thing @"F2d5thCav".

[Ninurta]

It's kind of sad that I will not live long enough to see this technology incorporated into astronomical applications.

But since DIA is involved, I will doubtless live long enough to see it incorporated into applications to spy on people by governments.

.