Multi Modal Materials Analysis (MMoMA)
DARPA seeks innovative methods for analyzing material composition and structure under normal conditions without special sample prep, aiming for breakthroughs beyond current technologies.
Funder: DARPA - Defense Sciences Office
Due Dates: July 1, 2026 (Questions deadline) | July 8, 2026 (Abstract due, 4:00 p.m. ET) | August 26, 2026 (Full proposal due)
Funding Amounts: Multiple awards anticipated; 36-month projects; optional DSO Fundamental Defense Research Talent Award up to $150,000/year per eligible student/postdoc.
Summary: Supports innovative research in multi-modal materials analysis under ambient conditions, emphasizing new approaches for parallel surface and bulk analysis with in-situ data fusion.
Key Information: Abstracts are mandatory and only invited proposers may submit full proposals.
Description
The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) Defense Sciences Office seeks high-impact, innovative research proposals in the technical area of multi-modal materials analysis. The program aims to revolutionize how materials are analyzed—enabling comprehensive surface and bulk analysis (molecular structure, elemental composition, trace elements, isotope ratios) under ambient conditions, with no special sample preparation required.
The initiative focuses on developing systems that use a single, configurable excitation source and multiple detection modalities, integrating real-time data fusion to maximize information extraction from diverse samples (organic, inorganic, special nuclear materials). The end goal is to create capabilities for rapid, accurate, and field-deployable materials identification for applications such as supply chain integrity, forensics, tamper detection, and more.
Research that merely offers incremental improvements over current methods is specifically excluded.
