Highlights
- The National Science Foundation awarded the University of Arizona $1.2 million under its Translation to Practice program, effective May 15, 2026.
- Principal investigator Brandon Chalifoux will develop ultrafast laser stress figuring, a process that shapes glass mirrors to nanometer accuracy using laser-induced stress patterns.
- The technology targets cost and weight reductions in mirrors used for satellites, aircraft cameras, and defense systems.
- The award runs through April 30, 2029, and includes development of open-source software tools for optical engineers.
The National Science Foundation has awarded the University of Arizona $1.2 million to push a novel mirror-manufacturing process out of the lab and into commercial production, according to award records posted May 10 on NSF's public database.
The grant, Award ID 2553205, runs from May 15, 2026, through April 30, 2029, and is funded through NSF's Translation to Practice program, which the agency describes as supporting efforts to translate research discoveries into practical tools that benefit communities, industry, and society.
Principal investigator Brandon Chalifoux and his team at the Tucson campus are developing a technique called ultrafast laser stress figuring, or ULSF. The process uses ultrafast lasers to create precise stress patterns inside glass mirrors, deterministically shaping the mirror to nanometer accuracy. The goal is to produce mirrors that are lighter and cheaper than those made by conventional methods, without sacrificing the complex geometries required for high-performance optical systems.
The commercial case is straightforward: lightweight, high-quality mirrors are essential for many technologies that benefit society, from cameras on airplanes and satellites to defense systems and scientific instruments, according to the NSF abstract. Current manufacturing methods for mirrors with complex shapes are extremely difficult and expensive, the abstract states, which is the market gap ULSF is designed to close.
The research team plans to deliver two concrete outputs alongside the manufacturing process itself: an open-source software tool to help optical engineers design systems using ULSF mirrors, and demonstrations of both unmounted and mounted freeform ULSF mirrors meeting diffraction-limited optical accuracy. The optics industry focus gives the project a clearer commercialization path than basic-science grants typically carry.
The University of Arizona's Wyant College of Optical Sciences has prior institutional history with ULSF research, according to a contracts-and-grants notice on the college's website, and the underlying technique has been presented at Optica (formerly OSA) conferences, per a published abstract in the Optica digital library.
The award is one of several recent NSF grants flowing to Arizona research institutions. Arizona State University received $783,649 in May 2026 for evolutionary biology research and $298,888 for an open-source traffic-simulation ecosystem, both under separate NSF programs.
The project period closes April 30, 2029; milestone demonstrations of production-ready ULSF mirrors are expected before that date.
Sources
Every factual claim in this article traces to one of the sources below. See how we work for the editorial process.
- nsf.gov retrieved 10/05/2026 16:23
- optics.arizona.edu retrieved 10/05/2026 16:23
- opg.optica.org retrieved 10/05/2026 16:23
- nsf.gov retrieved 10/05/2026 16:23
Authored by The Scottsdale Signal. Drafted by AI from primary-source material under our beat-specific editorial guides; reviewed by humans before publish under our five-gate process. Sources retrieved at 10/05/2026 16:23. Every claim traces to a source.
