Use of Alternate Materials for Infrared (IR) Missile Domes

"The objective of this proposal is to illustrate the significance of ALONTM as the alternative to sapphire and other hard materials for use in the construction of low-cost high-speed missile domes due to the versatility of the highly developed ALONTMmaterial processing capability. Through the application of high-speed optical fabrication processes and hard-material processing technologies the intention is to demonstrate that ALONTM is significantly less costly to fabricate into high-speed missiledomes than that of other hard materials. The ideal replacement for sapphire would be inexpensive to procure, easy and inexpensive to fabricate and still retain the excellent combination of optical and mechanical properties exhibited by sapphire. Of allavailable candidate materials, ALONTM comes closest to this ideal. ALONTM 's properties are very similar to those of sapphire, yet ALONTM is transparent in its polycrystalline form. Therefore, ALONTM can be made by powder processing techniques, in largersizes, more complex shapes, and at lower costs than are possible with sapphire. Furthermore, ALONTM's isotropic mechanical properties make it much easier and less expensive to polish using high-speed optical fabrication techniques than the an-isotropicsapphire. ALONTM is also in the process of being commercialized on a large scale, unlike other candidate materials, such as spinel. The economics and availability of these materials is a crucia