USA As Represented by Secretary of the Navy

Jeremy J Pietron

Debra R Rolison

Rhonda Michele Stroud

Jean M Wallace

Jane K Rice

Jeffrey W Long

Jeffrey C Owrutsky

Christopher N Chervin

Paul A Desario

Kenan P Fears

Todd H Brintlinger

Adam Dunkelberger

Michael B Pomfret

Blake Simpkins

An apparatus including an optical resonator, and a method of using same. The optical limiter includes an optically absorbent material. The optical resonator supports a plurality of resonant transmission peaks at resonant frequencies defined by the cavity length. The optically absorbent material exhibits a saturable absorption response at a fundamental absorption peak located spectrally at a fundamental absorption peak frequency of the plurality of resonant transmission peaks. The optically absorbent material includes an absorptivity sufficient for strong cavity coupling, such that the fundamental absorption peak splits into a first upper vibration polariton transmission peak and a second lower polariton transmission peak separated by a Rabi splitting. The Rabi splitting is proportional to a square root of the absorptivity. The absorptivity varies with optical excitation of the optically absorbent material. The absorptivity is maximized at a photon-unsaturated ground state, and the absorptivity is minimized at an optically excited state.

Intrinsic and tunable self-modulating optical limiter via strong cavity coupling

A composition having: titania aerogel having titania nanoparticles and copper nanoparticles. Each of the copper nanoparticles is in contact with more than one of the titania nanoparticles. A method of: providing a titania aerogel, and forming or depositing copper nanoparticles onto the surface of the titania aerogel.

Copper nanoparticle-titania composite nanoarchitectures

An article having a titanium, titanium carbide, titanium nitride, tantalum, aluminum, silicon, or stainless steel substrate, a RuOcoating on a portion of the substrate; and a plurality of platinum nanoparticles on the RuOcoating. The RuOcoating contains nanoparticles of RuO. A method of: immersing the substrate in a solution of RuOand a nonpolar solvent at a temperature that is below the temperature at which RuOdecomposes to RuOin the nonpolar solvent in the presence of the article; warming the article and solution to ambient temperature under ambient conditions to cause the formation of a RuOcoating on a portion of the article; and electrodepositing platinum nanoparticles on the RuOcoating.

Electrodes having Pt nanoparticles on RuOnanoskins

This disclosure describes the first viable non-enzyme protein encapsulated within an aerogel. In this, a large excess of cyt c is added to a commercial buffered Au sol solution ( ) which results in the formation of a gold&#x2dc;protein-protein superstructure in the absence of separation techniques which destroy the superstructure. The gold&#x2dc;protein-protein superstructure is then nanoglued into a silica framework during the sol to gel transition. To form the gel, the Au&#x2dc;cyt. c superstructure in buffered medium is added to a silica sol and the composite gels are washed with acetone followed by liquid carbon dioxide and then supercritically dried to form the aerogel. The biocomposite aerogels have a multiplicity of applications particularly in the realm of sensing and energy transformation.

Silica mesoporous aerogels having three-dimensional nanoarchitecture with colloidal gold-protein superstructures nanoglued therein

Gold-titania (Au&#x2014;TiO) composite aerogels and ambigles were synthesized, characterized, and tested as ambient temperature catalysts for carbon monoxide. Adding alkanethiolate-monolayers-protected gold clusters (with &#x2dc;2 nm Au cores) directly to titania sol before gelation yields uniformly dispersed guests in the composite aerogel. The Au guests aggregate to 5 to 10 nm upon calcination to remove alkanethiolate and crystallize amorphous titania to anatase. The resulting composite aerogel exhibits high catalytic activity toward CO oxidation at room temperature at Au particle sizes that are essentially inactive in prior Au&#x2014;TiOcatalysts. Transmission electron microscopy illustrates the three-dimensional nature of the catalytic nanoarchitecture in which gold guests contact multiple anatase nanocrystallites.

Catalytic three dimensional aerogels having mesoporous nanoarchitecture

Growing community of inventors

Washington, DC, United States of America

Jeremy J Pietron