SBIR/STTR Award attributes
The U.S. Navy is seeking a low-noise, highly sensitive underwater acoustic sensor. Next-generation sonobuoys require more acoustic sensors packaged into the same fixed volume. Reduction in the volume of piezoelectric materials in an acoustic sensor can pose many challenges, such as increase in susceptibility to thermal noise, and can compromise performance. To address this urgent ¬¬¬Navy need, ChromoLogic LLC (CL) proposes to develop a novel Under Water Acoustic Sensor (UWAS). The UWAS system is based on a miniature sensor chip design with electro-acoustic and acousto-optic sensing modalities integrated on a single transducer. The sensor chip comprised of a novel piezoelectric ceramic-polymer composite sensor element and a pair of polymer coated Bragg grating waveguides. The ceramic-polymer nanocomposite offers high piezoelectric charge constant compared to the state of the art counter parts such as ceramic materials and single crystals. In the UWAS design, a self-demodulation technique is utilized for the Bragg grating waveguide with a matched grating pair. This will provide a simple opto-electronics circuit that can be easily integrated to the sensor chip electronics. With the matched Bragg grating pair design thermal noise can be easily compensated, which is an added benefit of UWAS technology.
