Aeluma, Inc. announced that it has been awarded funding from the U.S. Navy to develop photonics reliability methodologies for defense and aerospace applications. Aeluma will lead the development activities and intends to collaborate with The Aerospace Corporation, a leading national nonprofit that operates a Federally Funded Research and Development Center (FFRDC) across the space domain. Photonic technologies, including Aeluma's large-diameter wafer photodetectors, are important for defense and aerospace systems. Aeluma has also identified automotive and mobile markets as primary commercial targets, each having specific performance and reliability metrics.

While there is overlap with these requirements, defense and aerospace applications pose additional challenges related to environmental and mechanical constraints. The lack of data and information on reliability of photonics for defense and aerospace platforms has prevented wide adoption of these technologies, and this work seeks to address this shortcoming by developing critical reliability methodologies. Aeluma is working to commercialize its transformative semiconductor chip technology for a variety of markets including automotive LiDAR, mobile, defense and aerospace, AR/VR, AI, and communication.

Aeluma has established a unique semiconductor manufacturing capability in Santa Barbara, California. With its proprietary technology that combines compound semiconductor nanomaterials with mass market semiconductor manufacturing, Aeluma is developing products that could offer high-performance and low-cost solutions for emerging markets. Key to Aeluma's disruptive technology is the ability to manufacture its semiconductor chips on up to 12-inch Silicon substrates, which can scale and be mass produced, thereby potentially reducing the cost of chips dramatically.