Novel materials and manufacturing are quickly gaining interest in the United States and abroad due to their projected impact on innovation and the ability to adapt technologies at an accelerated pace.
The Science and Technology Directorate (S&T) is focused on harnessing the potential of advanced novel materials that could help drive down cost and improve their suitability for use in Department of Homeland Security (DHS) operational environments. As advances in novel materials and manufacturing are discovered, applying them to DHS mission spaces will be vital to providing improved capability to screen, interdict, and protect against threats.
Conversely, novel materials and advanced manufacturing capabilities also can create threats, such as 3-D printed weapons, and new attack vectors, such as backdoor entry points in embedded electronics. The microelectronics and semiconductor-based integrated circuit safety and supply chain has garnered much national attention in the last decade due to the migration of the manufacturing base from the United States to other countries, along with the uptick in malicious actor threatening to cause havoc on U.S. infrastructure.
Executive Order 14017 on “America’s Supply Chains” assigns DHS the responsibility of building resilient supply chains and securing microelectronics while combatting trafficking in counterfeit, fake, and maliciously affected chips and preventing their entrance into the country.
S&T’s focus areas in novel materials and secure manufacturing are:
- Novel Materials Applications - We seek to understand and assess the application of novel materials in multiple DHS mission spaces.
- Advanced Manufacturing Security and Threats - We strive to understand the security impacts to both supply chains and the goods that are used by the American people, as well as the potential ways these processes can be misused, as manufacturing technologies evolve.
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