MAINSTREAM ENGINEERING CORP — Department of Defense STTR Phase I: MDA20-T004
MAINSTREAM ENGINEERING CORP — STTR Phase I award from Department of Defense.
- Amount
- $124,887
- Agency
- Department of Defense · Missile Defense Agency
- Program / Phase
- STTR · Phase I
- Topic
- MDA20-T004
- Solicitation
- 20.C
- NAICS
- —
- Place of performance
- FL
- Period
- 2021-04-30 → 2021-10-29
Description
Current silicon (Si) semiconductors are unsuitable for high radiation environments found in space or nuclear facilities. An alternative approach exists with vacuum tubes, where a gate electrode encourages electron emission across a vacuum gap between an emitter (source) and collector (drain). Traditionally, these were high voltage applications with low reliability, using a filament to heat the tube for thermionic emission. However, the vacuum gap contains no material for radiation to interfere with the switching process, rendering vacuum tubes inherently radiation resistant. Mainstream proposes a cold cathode field emission transistor, a modern, nanometer-scale replacement for vacuum tubes. Mainstream's unique ability to pattern and grow carbon nanotubes (CNTs) as emission transistors is uniquely suited for preventing radiation interaction problems. Approved for Public Release |21-MDA-10789 (21 Apr 21)