Grants and Contributions

The Project goal is to enhance the single-photon detection efficiency of semiconductor single-photon avalanche diodes (SPADs) in the shortwave infrared region by integrating metasurface designs with the high quality InGaAs/InP APD heterostructures grown at NRC. The Project’s metasurface design, based on an array of semiconductor nanostructures, allows for enhancing the absorption efficiency and controlling the spatial absorption profile within a thinner absorption region than conventional SPADs. These features of metasurface SPADs will enable enhanced single-photon detection efficiency of ~80%, while also improving the timing resolution by an order of magnitude to tens of picoseconds. Surface passivation techniques will be developed for the metasurface SPAD device architecture to achieve the proposed device metrics. The portable, metasurface-based SPADs with enhanced efficiency and timing resolution impacts a broad range of applications including quantum lidar and imaging, quantum sensing, quantum networks, and defense.

This project will develop and demonstrate a compact, FPGA-integrated VCSEL control board designed to drive a reconfigurable 2x2 plasma antenna submodule for defence and dual-use RF applications. The
work advances Canadian capability in frequency-agile, and polarization-agile antenna systems.

Market and Requirements Discovery for Asset Monitoring in Remote Environments

This initiative supports Canada’s strategic defence sector, strengthens domestic innovation capacity, and advances sovereign capabilities in situational awareness technologies.

Using both internal resources and external consultant(s) to review our capabilities and CDN defense requirements, looking for the best match and eventually be able to offer custom or current products while maintaining manufacturing within Canada. Supply CDN Military with products for current facilities within Canada and potentially for deployment internationally.

The work will examine relevant defence-sector needs, customer segments, procurement pathways, compliance requirements, and commercialization opportunities in Canada and allied markets. It will also develop proof-of-value materials and define a roadmap for market entry, partnership development, and future procurement readiness.

In this project, Valence Water will conduct a gap analysis to evaluate the opportunities for using its industrial, electro-oxidation reactor system to support defence related water treatment applications, and to determine what changes to the system design are required to achieve the goals and challenges that are specific to these defence applications.

This project researches the requirements and architecture required to transition the firm's collaboration platform from public cloud infrastructure to secure on-premise and air-gapped environments.

This work directly supports Canada's "Our North, Strong and Free" defence policy priorities in cyber resilience and quantum threat mitigation.

Baüne will establish and document the requirements and processes needed to deploy AVACS™ an offline‑first autonomous medical platform. The project defines personnel, facility, and product‑level safeguards.