Dynamically Tunable Metamaterials

The US Army utilizes semi-active laser (SAL) optical sensors on many missile platforms from missiles to guided bombs to provide precision guidance to targets.There is a need for low-cost missile seekers that can be integrated on smaller platforms without any moving parts. Next generation semi-active laser seekers therefore require novel non-gimbal (strap-down) seeker solutions with the same total field of view operation as a gimbal seeker in order to maintain track on a target.A SAL seeker must also operate in an environment which may be rich with background radiation, particularly when the sun is located in the sensor field of view.In order to reduce the impact of background radiation the seeker optics requires a wide field of view narrow band pass filter centered at the target near-infrared laser illuminator wavelength.This requires a solar rejection filter with a pass band to be tuned to a desired laser designator wavelength. AEgis technologies proposes to useametamaterial approach towards the realization of awide fieldof view tunable infrared band pass filter technology that can be utilized for strapped down semi-active laser seeker sensors optics.