NUCLEAR HARDENING AND SURVIVABILITY

WITH THE GRADUAL REPLACEMENT OF ELECTRONIC COMPUTATIONAL SYSTEMS FOR HIGH THROUGHPUT, EXTREMELY FAST, OPTICAL SIGNAL PROCESSORS (OPTICAL COMPUTERS, CORRELATORS, ETC.) IN THE NUCLEAR WARFARE ARENA, THE NEED EXISTS TO EVALUATE OPTICAL SIGNAL PROCESSOR COMPONENTS IN BOTH REAL AND SIMULATED NUCLEAR ENVIROMENTS. SINCE BRIMROSE IS ONE OF THE WORLD LEADERS IN THE OPTICAL SIGNAL PROCESSING COMPOENTS FIELD, IT WOULD BE APPROPRIATE TO HAVE OUR DEVICES EVALUATED IN SIMULATED NUCLEAR ENVIROMENTS. IN PHASE I, BRIMROSE ACOUSTO-OPTIC DEVICES, WHICH ARE PRESENTLY USED IN OPTICAL COMPUTERS, EARLY WARNING RADAR SYSTEMS, LASER COMMUNICATION SYSTEMS, ETC., WILL BE EVALUATED BEFORE AND AFTER NUCLEAR SIMULATION ENVIROMENTS. UPON ARRANGEMENTS MADE BY DNA, THE MAXWELL FACILITY AT SAN DIEGO WILL BE USED. IN PHASE II, DEPENDING UPON THE RESULTS, RADIATION HARDENING TECHNIQUES WILL BE STUDIED AND EMPLOYED TO IMPROVE THE DEVICE PERFORMANCE. SHOULD THIS WORK BECOME CLASSIFIED, BRIMROSE WILL BE ABLE TO PARTICIPATE.