United States of America as Represented by the Administrator of Nasa

Mary J Li

Anthony W Yu

Mahmooda Sultana

Zhihong Chen

Kyowon Kim

Alexander Kutyrev

Matthew Greenhouse

A microshutter array can have a frame, a plurality of linear microshutter elements, and a plurality of electrodes. The frame defines a plurality of openings and each opening is defined by a first sidewall, a second sidewall, a third sidewall opposing and parallel to the first sidewall, and a fourth sidewall. Each opening includes a light-transmissive portion configured to span an area. The plurality of linear microshutter elements are configured to extend across at least a part of the area. Each linear microshutter element can have a blade extending in a length direction across and blocking the light-transmissive portion. Each linear microshutter element can have a neck extending from the blade, and at least one torsion bar connected to the neck and connected to sidewalls of the frame.

Microshutter array

The present invention relates to a method of manufacturing large area graphene for graphene-based photonics devices such as bolometric graphene detectors, or for use as a saturable absorber in ultra-high bandwidth detectors for producing ultrafast laser pulses. The method includes: growing a first graphene layer on one side of a metal substrate, and a second graphene layer on another side of the metal substrate; coating the first graphene layer with a plurality of resist layers including a low molecular weight polymethylmethacrylate, and a high molecular weight polymethylmethacrylate; removing the second graphene layer and the metal substrate to reveal the first graphene layer; disposing the first graphene layer on an optical substrate; and removing the plurality of resist layers from the first graphene layer to reveal a final graphene layer, which can be used as the basis to manufacture a multilayer graphene structure for graphene detectors.

Method of manufacturing large area graphene and graphene-based photonics devices

The present invention relates to a graphene field effect transistor-based radiation sensor for use in a variety of radiation detection applications, including manned spaceflight missions. The sensing mechanism of the radiation sensor is based on the high sensitivity of graphene in the local change of electric field that can result from the interaction of ionizing radiation with a gated undoped silicon absorber serving as the supporting substrate in the graphene field effect transistor. The radiation sensor has low power and high sensitivity, a flexible structure, and a wide temperature range, and can be used in a variety of applications, particularly in space missions for human exploration.

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Bethesda, MD, United States of America

Mary J Li