SBIR-STTR Award

The ExOne Company and Northrop Grumman AOA Xinetics (AOX) have been developing Additive Manufactured Silicon Carbide optics for the past several years. Silicon Carbide (SiC) is an ideal ceramic material for optics because of its low density, high strength and stiffness, low Coefficient of Thermal Expansion (CTE), and high thermal conductivity. Additive Manufacturing (AM) using ExOne Binder Jetting technology enables SiC to be manufactured faster, less expensively, and with less design restrictions than traditional manufacturing processes. Northrop Grumman AOX has demonstrated sintering and infiltration techniques with AM SiC preforms, as well as coating and polishing feasibility for mirrors up to 20cm in diameter. ExOne and AOX propose to build upon its established technology foundation to additively manufacture large diameter (30cm) SiC primary mirrors for HEL applications.

In Phase I, ExOne successfully demonstrated the feasibility of 3D Printing Silicon Carbide Optics for High Energy Laser weapon systems. Feasibility was proven by optimizing printing and post processing furnace parameters for two silicon carbide powder feedstocks, completing material characterization, and printing 4 mirrors of varying geometric complexity in the 10cm size range. One mirror was ground, and polished. In Phase II, ExOne will scale up its printing process to a larger machine platform (X1 160PRO), produce 30-40 cm diameter optics, complete material characterization, and provide a finished mirror prototype to the Army for evaluation.