Description: Discovery of life beyond the Earth will have profound intellectual and spiritual impact on humanity. NASA's Habitable Worlds Observatory (HWO) will make this discovery but only if the technology to overcome the obstacles to making these observations continues to advance. Exoplanets can be 10 billion times dimmer than their star making observations extraordinarily difficult. Researchers around the country have gradually improved coronagraph designs and test beds working towards the goal of achieving 1E-10 contrast. The PI of this proposal has delivered key components to researchers at NASA Ames, NASA GSFC, Space Telescope Science Institute, Caltech and the University of Notre Dame. This includes reflective and transmissive apodizers patterned with carbon nanotubes that scavenge diffracted light from the stars which can swamp the light from the planet. Carbon nanotubes are among the darkest materials ever fabricated and when applied to components enable new observations. The apodizers have excellent wavefront error and throughput and are enabling technology. This SBIR will fund additional improvements in apodizers including better reflective coatings, darker carbon nanotubes, improved patterning and enhanced characterization techniques. Two dozen next generation apodizers will be delivered to collaborators at the institutions listed and at the Unversity of Arizona and University of California in Santa Cruz. Other next generation components include carbon nanotube coated Lyot Stops and Focal Plane masks. Next generation designs and components will drive improvements as our collaborators test coronagraph architectures and refine their models. The variety of designs and improved coronagraph components will reduce risk to the HWO program by allowing a virtuous design, fabricate and test cycle to help determine the most promising path towards direct imaging of Exoplanets and characterization of their atmospheres.

Benefits: High Contrast Imaging - Enabling technology Habitable Worlds Observatory Search for Life beyond the Earth Extreme stray light control for all NASA instruments. PACE OCI entrance slit was developed for NASA and flight qualified for use. LISA and Laser Communications for Duplex Telescopes Earth Science instrument stray light control and calibrators - improving observational efficiency, reducing cost, enabling new science

CNT coated Apodizers Lyot Stops, Focal Plane Masks, baffles- extreme stray light control for nearly all optical systems operating in high contrast regimes. This includes autonomous driving and commercial imaging. Calibrators are used in precision optical instrumentation in chemical , optical and other sensing in commercial and DOD Applications in Art and High Fashion watches