Electric current output or scintillation light from solid-state inorganic materials under ionizing radiation is very useful
for nuclear and radiation detection. Direct electric current measurements in semiconductors or ionic crystals provide
high resolution spectroscopy and imaging capability even though there are scalability and cost issues. In contrast,
inorganic scintillation materials utilizing photons generated by incident radiation have been developed for many decades
and provide better scalability and lower cost. Ceramic materials offer compelling advantages including large size,
mechanical strength, and homogeneity. In this work, we review current status of advanced radiation detection materials
and introduce our efforts in the development of ceramic scintillator materials, mainly for gamma ray detection.
A study of the laser induced damage threshold (LiDT) of anti-reflection (AR) microstructures (ARMs) built in the end
facets of metal ion doped yttrium aluminum garnet (YAG) laser gain material, has been conducted. Test samples of
undoped and ytterbium-doped polycrystalline YAG produced by Raytheon Company were processed with ARMs in one
surface and subjected to standardized pulsed LiDT testing at the near-infrared (NIR) wavelength of 1064nm. As
received YAG samples with a simple commercial polish were also submitted to the damage tests for comparison, along
with YAG samples that were treated with a single layer thin-film AR coating designed for maximum transmission at
1064nm. Additional samples of single crystal sapphire and quartz, and polycrystalline ALONTM windows were prepared
with thin-film AR coatings and ARMs textures to expand the 1064nm laser damage testing to other important NIR
transmitting materials. It was found that the pulsed laser damage resistance of ARMs textured ceramic YAG windows
is 11 J/cm2, a value that is 43% higher than untreated ceramic YAG windows, suggesting that ARMs fabrication
removed residual sub-surface damage, a factor that has been shown to be important for increasing the damage resistance
of an optic. This conclusion is also supported by the high damage threshold values found with the single layer AR
coatings on ceramic YAG where the coatings may have shielded the sub-surface polishing damage. Testing results for
the highly polished sapphire windows also support the notion that better surface preparation produces higher damage
resistance. The damage threshold for untreated sapphire windows exceeded 32 J/cm2 for one sample with an average of
27.5 J/cm2 for the two samples tested. The ARMs-treated sapphire windows had similar damage thresholds as the
untreated material, averaging 24.9 J/cm2, a value 1.5 to 2 times higher than the damage threshold of the thin film AR
coated sapphire windows.
New military requirements have reinvigorated the need for transparent magnesium aluminate (MgAl2O4) spinel. Surmet has developed a process that yields high quality transparent spinel at production scale. Several issues related to the extreme requirements of processing ultrafine spinel powders are described. Transmission data is presented for a significant dataset of parts made by this process.
More recently, the process has been expanded to include a capability for producing domes for the Joint Common Missile program. Domes at nominal 6” and 7” diameter have been successfully fabricated. Despite early challenges related to the forming portion of the process, a repeatable capability for these domes has been demonstrated.
Several challenges remain in spinel processing in order to support additional military requirements. In particular, the strength of the material needs further improvement. Also, improvements in optical quality with regard to inclusions are needed.
ALONTM Optical Ceramic is a durable window material for UV, Visible and Mid IR window and dome applications. The mechanical, thermal, and optical properties of ALON products produced commercially by Surmet Corporation have been measured and this new data will be presented. Comparisons to previously measured data will be made.
Optical quality, low scatter ALON having high strength that is nearly double previously reported has been made. Average strength values of 700 MPa at 21°C and 631 MPa at 500°C have been measured for ALON specimens prepared by precision surface finishing techniques. Polished optical domes tested have survived severe thermal shock tests. These strength levels are comparable to those for single crystal sapphire. Strength, thermal conductivity, thermal expansion, refractive index, emissivity and absorption coefficient will be presented. The possible mechanisms for the increased strength will be discussed.
Aluminum Oxynitride (ALONTM Optical Ceramic) is a transparent ceramic material which combines transparency from the UV to the MWIR with excellent mechanical properties. ALON’s optical and mechanical properties are isotropic by virtue of its cubic crystalline structure. Consequently, ALON is transparent in its polycrystalline form and can be made by conventional powder processing techniques. This combination of properties and manufacturability make ALON suitable for a range of applications from IR windows, domes and lenses to transparent armor.
The technology for producing transparent ALON was developed at Raytheon and has been transferred to Surmet Corporation where it is currently in production. Surmet is currently selling ALON into a number of military (e.g., windows and domes) and commercial (e.g., supermarket scanner windows) applications.
The capability to manufacture large ALON windows for both sensor window and armor applications is in place. ALON windows up to 20x30 inches have been fabricated. In addition, the capability to shape and polish these large and curved windows is being developed and demonstrated at Surmet. Complex shapes, both hyper-hemispherical and conformal, are also under development and will be described.
Aluminum Oxynitride or ALON optical ceramic is transparent material, developed and patented by Raytheon, which is very similar to sapphire, being comprised mostly of Al2O3 with a small amount of additional nitrogen. This nitrogen addition has the effect of producing a cubic material whose optical and mechanical properties are isotropic. Importantly, this means that it can be produced by powder processing methods, which are scalable to larger sizes, and at lower prices than can be achieved by the single crystal growth techniques that are used to grow sapphire. Furthermore, its isotropic properties make it much easier to grind and polish than sapphire. Recently, the interest in ALON optical ceramic has grown substantially following impressive results in ballistic testing. Ballistic laminates, containing ALON layers, have demonstrated protection against armor piercing rounds, at half the areal density and thickness of conventional ballistic laminates. ALON plates as large as 14x20in are being produced, under Air Force funding, for evaluation as IR windows and transparent armor, using conventional powder processing techniques. The production processes themselves are now being scaled to produce large pieces and large quantities of ALON optical ceramic.
Microwave plasma deposition techniques for preparing optical quality, uniformly thick diamond plates and domes continue to be actively developed. Thicknesses greater than two millimeters have been demonstrated for optical quality dome blanks, and excellent optical quality has been obtained for five inch diameter plates. Presently achievable CVD diamond is the strongest LWIR-transparent material and is impervious to thermal shock. It can be used in its present form for prototype window preparation. Nevertheless, further strength improvement is required for CVD diamond for applications requiring resistance to particle (e.g. raindrop) impacts. Fracture strength improvement is a primary objective of diamond technology development. Continued development of optical diamond technology must also emphasize increased deposition rates for the highest quality material and optimized polishing processes to assure its place as a cost effective optical material for high performance applications.
Aluminum oxynitride or ALON is a transparent polycrystalline ceramic material having high strength (380 MPa) and hardness (1950 kg/mm2). The transmission range of ALON extends from 0.2 micrometer in the UV through the visible to 6.0 micrometer in the infrared. This material is made by conventional powder processing and sintering a powder compact to full density and optical transparency. Powder compacts of near net shape and size are made by conventional dry pressing, by slip casting, and by injection molding methods. This gives the material great latitude in size and shape capabilities not afforded by materials formed by single crystal growth methods. Intrinsic transparency extending from ultraviolet wavelengths (UV) to mid-infrared wavelengths (MID-IR) and low levels of optical scatter have been achieved. In this paper recent measurements of the spectral dependence of forward optical scatter, the spectral emittance from room temperature to 1200 degrees Celsius, and the index of refraction (n) of ALON are presented. Literature values for the changes in refractive index with temperature (dn/dT) are compared.
In polycrystalline CVD diamond of useful macroscopic dimensions, which may be considered for high heat flux applications, thermal conductivity parameters are largely determined by grain size resulting from growth morphology, defects and impurities in the material. Thermal conductivity has been measured in a number of state-of-the-art diamond samples, by the steady state technique, over the temperature range 6 to 400 K. The results are presented, and discussed in terms of microstructural differences between samples. At approximately 30 K, a departure from normal Debye type behavior is observed as a lowering of the predicted conductivity. At higher temperatures, this departure becomes less significant so that above approximately 350 K, where only Umklapp processes contribute to phonon scattering, the measured thermal conductivity is close to that predicted by the model and in good agreement with reference data for natural type IIa single crystal diamond. To account for the observed temperature dependence of conductivity, an additional phonon scattering term is used which may be described as Rayleigh scattering at low temperature by defects of 0.7 to 1.3 nm in size.
The phono-dispersion curves derived from neutron-scattering experiments performed on diamond are not accurate enough to yield the exact frequencies of critical-point (CP) phonons and, thus, to provide a satisfactory interpretation of second-order optical spectra. A self- consistent analysis of such spectra proved to be difficult because it is not a straightforward task to assign second-order absorption and scatter features to specific two-phonon summations. A more effective method for obtaining accurate CP-phonon frequencies involves investigating defect-activated one-phonon absorptions; in this paper, the authors take advantage of the availability of chemically vapor-deposited (CVD) diamond for the purpose of locating and assigning infrared (IR) absorption features in the one-phonon region to CP phonons at the Brillouin-zone boundary. Fourier-transform IR absorbance spectra of CVD diamond exhibit a complex structure at wavenumbers below the 1333-cm-1 band-mode cutoff, which is induced by nitrogen-associated defect centers and yields the precise positions of sixteen zone-edge CP phonons. In conjunction with the triply-degenerate zone-center mode, this set of phonons then provides the basis for predicting the positions of second-order optical features through simple summations. Taking the selection rules into account, the procedure yields excellent results, not only in terms of CVD-diamond IR spectra, but also in regard to earlier measurements of the intrinsic two-phonon absorption coefficient of type-IIa natural diamond and the second-order polarization-dependent Raman-scatter characteristics recorded by Solin and Ramdas.
The infrared absorption in thin film polycrystalline diamond deposited in a microwave plasma is examined using Fourier
transform infrared spectroscopy (FF-IR). The incorporation of small amounts of hydrogen during the growth process resuits
in absorption in the "C-H stretch" region at 3.5 pm and 3.42 jim as well as absorption in the extrinsic defect related
single-phonon region from 7jim to 12 rim. This absorption is precisely in the 8 jim to 12 jtm band where high transmittance
is required by long wave infrared optical systems and therefore the amount of hydrogen incorporated during vapor phase
growth of diamond could limit this materials usefulness as a bulk optical material. The effects of growth conditions and
high temperature annealing on the absorption in these two IR regions are discussed. IR spectra are compared with Raman
spectra and hydrogen content measured by nuclear reaction analysis.
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