On June 29, 2023, IRflex Corporation signed SBIR Phase II Option Contract (Topic N19B-T028) with DOD NAVAIR for Additive Manufacturing of Inorganic Transparent Material for Advanced Optics, after successfully work partnered with University of Central Florida on Phase I and Phase II for the same project.
The award is to continuedly develop an additive manufacturing (AM) process for depositing inorganic glasses with sufficient quality and precision for free form and gradient index optics.
On April 18, 2019 IRflex Corporation singed this captioned SBIR Phase I project with Navy. After successfully completing the captioned Phase I, Phase I Option and Phase II project, on June 16, 2023 IRflex Corporation announces that the company was awarded NAVY SBIR Topic N191-012 Phase II Option project for Mid-Wave Infrared Polarization-Maintaining Single Mode Fiber.
Most infrared lasers are polarized. PM-fiber offers the capability of preserving the launched light polarization state as it propagates through the fiber. In conventional fibers the polarization state is not preserved due to mechanical stress, temperature induced changes, fiber fabrication imperfections, and fiber bends. Commercially available silica PM-fibers only cover the visible and near-infrared spectrum. Currently there is no commercially available PM-fiber solution for the MWIR region. The objective of this project is to develop single mode polarization-maintaining fiber (PM-fiber) that covers the Mid-Wave Infrared (MWIR) wavelengths from 2um – 6um for applications that require a high polarization extinction ratio at the fiber output and is able to waveguide tens of watts of optical power through the fiber.
