Rugged sensor window materials for harsh environments

Shyam Bayya; Guillermo Villalobos; Woohong Kim; Jasbinger Sanghera; Michael Hunt; Ishwar D. Aggarwal

doi:10.1117/12.2062160

5 September 2014 Rugged sensor window materials for harsh environments

Shyam Bayya, Guillermo Villalobos, Woohong Kim, Jasbinger Sanghera, Michael Hunt, Ishwar D. Aggarwal

Proceedings Volume 9202, Photonics Applications for Aviation, Aerospace, Commercial, and Harsh Environments V; 92021D (2014) https://doi.org/10.1117/12.2062160
Event: SPIE Optical Engineering + Applications, 2014, San Diego, California, United States

Abstract

There are several military or commercial systems operating in very harsh environments that require rugged windows. On some of these systems, windows become the single point of failure. These applications include sensor or imaging systems, high-energy laser weapons systems, submarine photonic masts, IR countermeasures and missiles. Based on the sea or land or air based platforms the window or dome on these systems must withstand wave slap, underwater or ground based explosions, or survive flight through heavy rain and sand storms while maintaining good optical transmission in the desired wavelength range. Some of these applications still use softer ZnS or fused silica windows because of lack of availability of rugged materials in shapes or sizes required. Sapphire, ALON and spinel are very rugged materials with significantly higher strengths compared to ZnS and fused silica. There have been recent developments in spinel, ALON and sapphire materials to fabricate in large sizes and conformal shapes. We have been developing spinel ceramics for several of these applications. We are also developing β−SiC as a transparent window material as it has higher hardness, strength, and toughness than sapphire, ALON and spinel. This paper gives a summary of our recent findings.

Citation Download Citation

Shyam Bayya, Guillermo Villalobos, Woohong Kim, Jasbinger Sanghera, Michael Hunt, and Ishwar D. Aggarwal "Rugged sensor window materials for harsh environments", Proc. SPIE 9202, Photonics Applications for Aviation, Aerospace, Commercial, and Harsh Environments V, 92021D (5 September 2014); https://doi.org/10.1117/12.2062160

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