Reactive Coating Materials as Lethality Enhancers

In this SBIR Phase I/II effort, Structured Materials Industries, Inc. (SMI) will develop and demonstrate a thin film coating technology that can serve as both lethality enhancers and as functional coatings for munitions. The goal of this project is twofold: 1) we will fabricate and characterize reactive thin films that rapidly release large quantities of thermal energy and 2) we will develop a technology to manufacture lethality enhancing coatings based on such thin films. Reactive thin films are comprised of multilayer compositions of nano-energetic materials. Total film thickness typically is on the order of 1 - 10 um, with individual layer thickness ranging from 10 nm to 100 nm. Multilayer films are typically formed by alternating layers of a metal such as Al a with metal oxides such as CuO or Fe2O3. The potential of these materials to release large quantities of thermal energy is well established. The feasibility of energetic materials in thin film form has previously been demonstrated in an Al/CuO system. In this SBIR effort, SMI proposes to further develop reactive thin film technology to allow for larger quantities of thermal energies to be released upon ignition so as to make implementation in future weapons possible.