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Search indexed NASA NTRS and DOE OSTI research on propulsion, heat transfer, battery materials and energy systems. Follow report and document links to the original sources.
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Buffer-amplifier unit designed to drive 50-Ohm cables up to 100 ft. (30 m) long, compensating for attenuation in cables and enabling remote operation of oscilloscopes. Variable resistor provides for adjustment of gain of amplifier, such that overall gain from input terminals of amplifier to output end of cable set to unity.
High performance active RC band pass filter design providing for independent adjustment of poles
The technology development needed to support the satellite system conceptual design is amplified. Activities connected to RF, control, and structure of the MSAT UHF antenna are addressed. The antenna RF activities are considered, and two studies related to the reflector surface tolerance and the microstrip feed technology are described. The software and hardware needed to implement the attitude control conceptual design are reviewed. Antenna structure development for the reflector and the deployable supporting mast is discussed. UHF feed located electronics are addressed.
We report a single stage tunded amplifier that exhibits 7 dB small signal gain at 176 GHz. Common Base topology is chosen as it has the best maximum stable gain (MSG) in this frequency band when compared to common emitter and common collector topologies. The amplifiers are designed and fabricated in InP mesa double heterojunction bipolar transistor (DHBT) technology.
A document discusses a silicon-on-insulator (SOI) complementary metal oxide/semiconductor (CMOS) integrated- circuit operational amplifier to be replicated and incorporated into sensor and actuator systems of Mars-explorer robots. This amplifier is designed to function at a supply potential less than or equal to 5.5 V, at any temperature from -180 to +120 C. The design is implemented on a commercial radiation-hard SOI CMOS process rated for a supply potential of less than or equal to 3.6 V and temperatures from -55 to +110 C. The design incorporates several innovations to achieve this, the main ones being the following: NMOS transistor channel lengths below 1 m are generally not used because research showed that this change could reduce the adverse effect of hot carrier injection on the lifetimes of transistors at low temperatures. To enable the amplifier to withstand the 5.5-V supply potential, a circuit topology including cascade devices, clamping devices, and dynamic voltage biasing was adopted so that no individual transistor would be exposed to more than 3.6 V. To minimize undesired variations in performance over the temperature range, the transistors in the amplifier are biased by circuitry that maintains a constant inversion coefficient over the temperature range.
Significant advancements in the 2-micron laser development have been made recently. Solid-state 2-micron laser is a key subsystem for a coherent Doppler lidar that measures the horizontal and vertical wind velocities with high precision and resolution. The same laser, after a few modifications, can also be used in a Differential Absorption Lidar (DIAL) system for measuring atmospheric CO2 concentration profiles. The world record 2-micron laser energy is demonstrated with an oscillator and two amplifiers system. It generates more than one joule per pulse energy with excellent beam quality. Based on the successful demonstration of a fully conductive cooled oscillator by using heat pipe technology, an improved fully conductively cooled 2-micron amplifier was designed, manufactured and integrated. It virtually eliminates the running coolant to increase the overall system efficiency and reliability. In addition to technology development and demonstration, a compact and engineering hardened 2-micron laser is under development. It is capable of producing 250 mJ at 10 Hz by an oscillator and one amplifier. This compact laser is expected to be integrated to a lidar system and take field measurements. The recent achievements push forward the readiness of such a laser system for space lidar applications. This paper will review the developments of the state-of-the-art solid-state 2-micron laser.
A single-stage C-band superconductor/semiconductor hybrid field-effect transistor amplifier was designed, fabricated, and tested at 77 K. The large area (1 inch x 0.5 inches) high temperature superconducting Tl-Ba-Ca-Cu-O (TBCCO) thin film was rf magnetron sputtered onto a LaAlO3 substrate. The film had a transition temperature of about 92 K after it was patterned and etched. The amplifier showed a gain of 6 dB and a 3 dB bandwidth of 100 MHz centered at 7.9 GHz. An identical gold amplifier circuit was tested at 77 K, and these results are compared with those from the hybrid amplifier.
We report on a laser amplifier architecture designed as a modular element for scaling to multi-megajoule laser facilities intended for inertial fusion energy (IFE) power plants. This kilojoule-class module features a stacked mosaic of gain media integrated with a diode delivery system for efficient optical pumping of the mosaic-structured gain medium, enabling high-repetition-rate operation at high wall plug efficiencies, necessary for an IFE driver. Details of a diode delivery system capable of pumping the mosaic architecture are presented. Comprehensive numerical modeling demonstrates that the stacked-mosaic approach reduces transverse gain by five orders of magnitude compared to a conventional full-aperture Yb:YAG based amplifier, substantially suppressing transverse amplified spontaneous emission (TASE) and enabling enhanced longitudinal energy extraction. Detailed analysis of thermal management and wavefront distortion in a 4 × 4 mosaic array indicates that temperature gradients and thermally induced aberrations are effectively controlled using gas cooling and commercially available phase-plate and deformable mirror technologies. We further discuss the applicability of a stacked-mosaic architecture to direct-drive IFE schemes, where broad spectral bandwidth is critical, and its compatibility with frequency conversion modules for up-conversion to blue wavelengths. Finally, an example point design for a 10 kJ, 10 Hz Yb:YAG module operating at 175 K with wall-plug efficiency exceeding 10 % is presented, underscoring the feasibility of this approach for next-generation high-energy lasers for IFE drivers. The results establish the stacked-mosaic amplifier as a scalable, robust platform not only for IFE but also for a broad range of advanced scientific and industrial laser applications.
We report S-parameter and noise measurements for three different Indium Phosphide 35-nanometer-gate-length High Electron Mobility Transistor (HEMT) Low Noise Amplifier (LNA) designs operating in the frequency range centered on 140 gigahertz. When packaged in a Waveguide Rectangular-6.1 waveguide housing, the LNAs have an average measured noise figure of 3.0 decibels - 3.6 decibels over the 122-170 gigahertz band. One LNA was cooled to 20 degrees Kelvin and a record low noise temperature of 46 Kelvin, or 0.64 decibels noise figure, was measured at 152 gigahertz. These amplifiers can be used to develop receivers for instruments that operate in the 130-170 gigahertz atmospheric window, which is an important frequency band for ground-based astronomy and millimeter-wave imaging applications.
Microelectronic function blocks and their use in low level amplifiers for space applications
Amplifier circuit with network for automatic temperature compensation to cancel unbalanced noise useful in electrocardiography
Transistor low noise seismic amplifier for fractional mv signals at ELF in ocean bottom seismographs and magnetic variometer
Field operational solid state varactor ultralow noise 1700 Mc parametric amplifier system
Infrared spectrometer and interferometer, stable pulse amplification system, sterilizable vidicon, and other space instruments
S-band amplifier development and klystron testing
Simple method using frequency synthesizer and sweep circuit for bandpass observation of S-band klystron power amplifier
Ultralow-noise two-channel tunable cascade amplifier system using upconverter and traveling wave maser