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The Next Big Thing:
Uncle Sam Wants... Military Meta Materials

Nanoscience and nanotechnology promise revolutionary change in medicine, electronics and a host of other areas. But what impact will they have on the nation's defense?

A research team from Georgia Tech, NASA and SRI International expects to provide an answer.

The researchers see tantalizing possibilities in the nanoworld, options available only by engineering new materials from the atom on up. Sponsored by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), their work focuses on "meta materials" for breakthrough antennas and new resistive magnetic, conductive and infrared coatings.

"We have largely reached the limit of what we can do in electromagnetics with the materials nature has provided," says Rick Moore, principal research scientist in the Signature Technology Lab of the Georgia Tech Research Institute (GTRI). "We now need to understand how to change the basic parameters of the materials we use. Nanoscience offers one potential technique to change those fundamental properties."

Moore and research engineer Douglas Denison head a team that includes scientists from two Georgia Tech academic colleges: Uzi Landman from the School of Physics and Mohan Srinivasarao from the School of Textile and Fiber Engineering. Landman offers a decade of experience in molecular dynamics simulation of nanoscale materials. Srinivasarao brings expertise in a novel self-assembly process for nanoscale structures.

The team brings together expertise from the nanometer-size scale – where quantum mechanics plays its tricks – on up to sizes that can be seen and touched. Denison explains, "We are taking the next step to bridge all of these size domains, from the quantum and micron scales all the way to a perceptible scale."

Building on GTRI's experience with electromagnetic materials, the four-year program begins with advanced modeling and basic science. It will conclude with production of nanomaterials possessing unique properties.

One possibility is a new material for the ground planes of future conformal antennas, the flat antennas on the sides of military vehicles. The ground plane increases antenna gain by redirecting electromagnetic energy outward. Physical laws dictate that it be separated from the antennas' radiating elements by a distance set by the wavelength of the energy. This limits the frequencies at which a single antenna performs well.

Researchers dream of a conductive magnetic material that would void these laws, making possible thinner antennas that work well over broad bandwidths. Nanoscience may make their dream a reality.

"Nanoscience offers an opportunity to make materials in the same way you would construct a building," Denison says. "You have a plan, and you work with beams and bricks to get the big structure you want. We won't be limited anymore to the bulk materials that nature has provided us."

For more information, contact Douglas Denison, Signature Technology Laboratory, Georgia Tech Research Institute, Atlanta, GA 30332-0800. (Telephone: 404-385-1261) (E-mail: doug.denison@gtri.gatech.edu)