Documents / Official release
This Defense Intelligence Reference Document, DIA-08-1004-006, is dated 6 April 2010 and was prepared by the Defense Intelligence Agency's Defense Warning Office. It is one of a series of advanced technology reports produced in FY 2009 under the Advanced Aerospace Weapon System Applications Program. The report reviews electromagnetic and optical metamaterials and their uses in sub-diffraction imaging, component miniaturization, energy harvesting, optical isolators and tunable devices. It concludes that metamaterials remain academic but have great potential for aerospace applications.
From the source: Release of 2026-09-18 Incident: 4/6/10, Las Vegas, Nevada. Released with redactions. This document is a Defense Intelligence Reference Document (DIRD), a technical reference format used by the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) to capture baseline knowledge on a specific topic for later analytic use. DIRDs are best understood as reference and synthesis products rather than as original research. It is one of 38 DIRDs produced under the Advanced Aerospace Weapon System Applications Program (AAWSAP) between 2009 and 2011. Because AAWSAP’s scope permitted a broad range of supporting topics, not every DIRD in the series directly concerns aerospace systems or future threat assessment. The following summary reflects the DIRD’s scope and framing at the time of writing and should not be read as implying current validation of the concepts discussed. This DIRD surveys metamaterials, engineered structures designed to control electromagnetic waves in ways ordinary materials cannot, and argues that their main aerospace value lies in unusual optical and microwave properties together with significant component miniaturization. The report reviews possible applications including sub-wavelength imaging, compact waveguides and lasers, energy harvesting, tunable absorbers, nonreciprocal devices, and switchable materials, with particular emphasis on infrared and microwave uses for sensing, power management, and payload efficiency. It notes that many of the most ambitious applications depend on the practical output of a still-nascent field, especially in optical metamaterials, where only limited demonstrations had been achieved and fabrication remained a major constraint. The document presents metamaterials as a promising advanced materials field with credible niche applications and broader long-term potential.
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amplitudes ( A(k1) and A(k2 ) ). Therefore, a new concept has to be developed, and the
multi-detector technique is such a concept.
The concept requires two detectors and two coherent laser beams. The two beams are
formed using a beam-splitter and a variable delay line imparting a phase shift to the
two beams (see the actual experimental photograph in Figure 13 where the beam
splitter BS and the Delay Line are shown). We have theoretically demonstrated that the
intensity dependences of the two detector intensities / 1(1/1) and / 2 (1/f) as a function of
the phase delay 1/f provides enough information to recover both A(k1) and A(k2) .
Unequal grating phase interference: dh, t ld orders
D1 = 2.74 μm
H100 nm Au
220 nm Si02
440 nm SiC
220 nm SiO2
100 nm Au
- . · -
0o 20 40 60 BO 100 120 140 160 180 200 220 240
Example "micrometer position" not correlated lo phase
Figure 12. (Left): Schematic for 2-Beams/2-Detectors Interferometric Measurement. (Right):
Numerical Simulation: intensity on the two detectors as a function of the phase delay between beams A and B
produced by the interference between the zeroth and first diffractive orders of the bottom diffractive grating
(numerical simulation). The second detector provides the necessary second data point which is necessary for
separating the contributions of different diffractive orders.
Two sets of experiments demonstrating the feasibility of the concept are conducted.
None of these experiments constitutes imaging per se. However, without demonstrating
the two key milestones described below, proper imaging experiments cannot be
attempted.
The first milestone involves demonstrating that 1PM indeed supports propagating (non
evanescent) sub-diffraction waves. Figure 11 shows the experimental schematic (left
panel) and experimental results. The bottom grating "imprints" its Fourier components
(zeroth, first, second, third, and so forth) onto the incident laser pulse t hereby
generating electromagnetic waves that are launched into the SiC-based 1PM. The zeroth
harmonic is inside the radi ation zone (that is, it is not sub-diffraction), while the first,
second, and so forth sub-diffraction. These EM waves scatter off the top grating having
a slightly different period and are released into the far field. Because the direction in
which waves are released depend on the Fourier harmonic's number, we can
experimentally separate and measure them. Clearly, the re lative magnitudes of these
diffractive orders dramatically vary as a function of the laser wavelength. For example,
the zeroth diffraction order clearly dominates in the &J_ Ofrequency range.
However, in the sj_ > 0, s11 < Ofrequency range the first diffractive order becomes larger
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Official release, from the pursue collection. The PDF is mirrored here; the original link is above. 38 pages are in the text index: search them above, or from the library's search.