DARPA Microsystems Technology Office (MTO) Opportunities

DARPA Microsystems Technology Office (MTO) Opportunities is sponsored by Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), Microsystems Technology Office (MTO). The MTO solicits innovative research ideas for topics not being addressed by ongoing MTO programs or other published BAA solicitations, particularly those focusing on advanced thermionic and “cold” cathode electron emitter concepts and technologies.

[](https://www. darpa. mil/about/offices/mxo) The Multi X Office (MXO) disrupts how technology is developed and used by applying the physical sciences to deliver novel, mission-relevant capabilities.

Technologically, MXO operates across scales and disciplines; operationally, it spans functions and domains. Announcing the expansion of the Microsystems Technology Office into the Multi X Office (MXO).

| 0:53 | More information on DVIDs Source: DARPA | Tim Byrne #### The Office of Tiny Things With Huge Impact Built on decades of breakthroughs pioneered by DARPA's Microsystems Technology Office, MXO carries this legacy forward while evolving to meet the challenges of a rapidly evolving technological and strategic landscape.

MXO explores materials at the atomic, molecular, and cellular scales to develop new components, tools, and processes that transform both the future battlespace and tomorrow’s economies. It advances breakthrough technologies that displace existing capabilities while also harnessing commercial innovation to deliver asymmetric advantages in today’s operational environment.

By expanding and scaling the foundational component hardware, tools, and processes across domains, applications, and architectures, MXO enables new missions and catalyzes the economies of the future. MXO’s beyond-the-headlights strategy requires its technical thrust areas to continually evolve in anticipation of emerging challenges.

Across all areas of interest, MXO prioritizes breakthroughs that enable fundamentally new capabilities; incremental improvements to the current state of the art need not apply. **Materials and Components to Expand the Foundation** Materials, devices, and their integration underpin the modern battlespace, but today’s CMOS-centric foundation is increasingly vulnerable to disruption and exploitation.

MXO seeks to establish new foundations beyond CMOS that enable resilient, secure, and attack-resistant systems. The office is interested in ideas that invent and enable the scalable production of foundational hardware for enduring military and economic advantage. **Tools and Processes for Indigenous Development** Indigenous tools, processes, and material supply chains are critical to national and economic security.

MXO seeks to strengthen industrial resilience by advancing new tools, processes, and capabilities that enable domestic development, establish new supply chains, and/or reduce reliance on vulnerable supply chains. The office is interested in ideas that help create new technology sectors, reinforce industrial sovereignty, and enable the United States to design, build, and scale critical technologies at home.

**New Modalities to Achieve Mission Effects** Sensing, orienting, computing, and communicating are essential to modern operations, but mission effects need not rely solely on traditional electronics. MXO seeks new technological modalities that deliver mission effects in ways that are more resilient to current and emerging vulnerabilities.

Areas of interest include (but are not limited to) devices leveraging new physics, hybrid electronic and non-electronic approaches that produce effects greater than the sum of its parts, and entirely new approaches to achieve mission effects that breakthrough existing paradigms’ constraints. **Registration opens:** Aug. 10, 2026 Artistic interpretation: Seizing the high ground inside the machine.

Source: DARPA | Tim Byrne #### Spark a connection with DARPA’s Multi X Office Innovators and out-of-the-box thinkers invited to engage at MXO Spark Tank and Pitch Day. | **Learn more** #### DARPA THREADS the needle on thermal barriers to RF power Program builds on its breakthrough performance gains to advance future operational capabilities. | **Learn more** #### What’s in a name?

At DARPA, reflecting enduring mission, future focus. DARPA has renamed two of its technical offices. | **Learn more** ### Ideas Under Incubation Before an idea becomes a program, it gets mulled, kicked around, and questioned.

During this period of contemplation, our program managers talk – a lot – to experts, potential transition partners, and each other. But we often wonder: What information are we missing that would provide much-needed context for program development? *_See important disclaimers and notes_ * **All-weather optical Communications** Can we improve the performance of free space optical communications to overcome obscurants?

What are the challenges, opportunities, and limitations to these approaches? | Contact Program Manager Thomas Schratwieser * **Biological apertures** Can we create functional bio-apertures with tunable properties? How would we target biochemical and microbial interventions to enhance metal uptake, and sequestration within selected plant species?

How can you apply microsystem design for functional use? | Contact Program Manager Daniel Ridge How can we achieve on-demand, custom integrated circuits for low-volume, niche defense applications? What design and manufacturing advances can we imagine that would displace incumbent state of the art design and microfabrication processes?

| Contact Program Manager Todd Bauer * **Directed Energy Healing** What field-operable technologies can be used to precisely locate and stop internal bleeding in the field within the golden hour? Are there possible internal, external, or combined approaches involving microsystems and directed energy delivery?

| Contact Program Manager Huanan Zhang * **Dynamic Tuning Microsystem Enhanced Separations** Can a compact platform enable highly selective purification processes for complex organic feedstocks? How can microscale process intensification be achieved and new thermodynamic regimes be exploited to enable high throughput and high purity chemical separation?

| Contact Program Manager Huanan Zhang * **Efficient optical transduction and actuation** How can we efficiently actuate a light signal without electronics? How can mechanics, biology and chemistry be leveraged on the microscale to interact with optical systems? And what are ways to transduce between these modalities?

| Contact Program Manager Anna Tauke-Pedtretti * **Flexoelectricity Utilizing Nanostructure** What are the different approaches that can be applied to manufacture flexoelectric materials? What challenges remain for these approaches for scale and efficient production? How can flexoelectric materials be used?

What are the properties and performance advantages for these materials? | Contact Program Manager David Meyer * **Lunar Manufacturing Infrastructure, Energy Generation and Storage** A lunar economy will require in-situ resource utilization of lunar-abundant materials. What are the challenges and opportunities in isolating and purifying critical elements from regolith?

Can these technologies scale for manufacture? Which energy solutions best suit a lunar environment? | Contact Program Manager Julian McMorrow * **Nanofluidic Computing** Can we apply bio-inspired nanofluidics for novel computation?

How can we emulate biological processes, such as the movement of ions in fluids, instead of traditional electronics, for image processing, as an example, using power consumptions on par with biological systems? | Contact Program Manager Yogendra Joshi * **Photonic Reconfigurable Inference and Scalable Module** Can we develop a scalable, general-purpose 3D optoelectronic platform for energy-efficient, high-density parallel computation?

What are the technology enablers to improve scaling, compute density, and energy efficiency with photonic integrated circuits? | Contact Program Manager Todd Bauer * **Physical Intelligence in Materials** Can we develop foundational, high-quality materials, interfaces, and assembly schemes for soft robotics? What are the current challenges for the development, manufacturing and use of these multifunctional materials?

| Contact Program Manager Julian McMorrow * **Sequence defined polymer synthesis with molecular machines for microsystems applications** What approaches, platforms, and systems could enable synthesis of sequence-defined polymers (e.g., novel synthetic methods and/or molecular machines)? What DoW applications might such macromolecules unlock for catalysts, optical materials, textiles, and microsystems manufacturing?

| Contact Program Manager John M. Hoffman * **Skyrmion-based magnetic memory** How can we improve current volatile and non-volatile magnetic memory? Is it possible to produce ultra-dense magnetic memory that is energy efficient and intrinsically robust to thermal- and radiation-based errors?

How would this change current computer architectures? | Contact Program Manager Thomas Schratwieser * **Three dimensional microsystems** How do we surpass 2D design limitations and volumetric multi-material integration constraints to deliver high-performance 3D microsystems? Can we be bio-inspired to achieve more surface area for charge, heat or chemical exchange?

What can these new three-dimensional microsystems enable? | Contact Program Manager David Meyer Opportunities to engage include R&D programs and efforts, challenge competitions, and technology transition efforts for the Multi X Office. | See all DARPA Opportunities | RSS feed for Opportunities _Use these filters to narrow your results by research topic or date.

Search by keyword to find your specific MXO opportunity. _ The Quantum Benchmarking Initiative (QBI) aims to examine approaches for constructing a utility-scale fault-tolerant quantum computer and computational workflows that include quantum compute steps. | See Program Deadline date: Dec.

30, 2026 Multi X Office #### QBI Topic: Independent Verification and Validation DARPA is issuing a Quantum Benchmarking Initiative topic (QBIT) inviting submissions of innovative infrastructure, equipment, and expertise available to provide independent verification and validation. | See Program Deadline date: Oct.

15, 2026 Multi X Office DARPA is issuing a **Quantum Benchmarking Initiative topic (QBIT)** to solicit innovative approaches addressing challenges related to quantum computing. | See Program Deadline date: Sept. 30, 2026 Multi X Office #### Office-wide BAA: Multi X Office Proposed research should investigate innovative approaches that enable revolutionary advances in science, devices, or systems.

| See MXO Deadline date: June 4, 2027 Multi X Office MXO Spark Tank will take place on Nov. 2-4, 2026, in Chicago, Ill. Advance registration is required.

| See Event Deadline date: Oct. 18, 2026 Multi X Office DARPA is soliciting innovative proposals that enable compact cold-atom devices and environmentally-decoupled ultra-high Q microelectromechanical and photonics devices through microscale ultra-high-vacuum systems (µUHV). | See Program Deadline date: Sept.

23, 2026 Multi X Office ### Pushing Technology's Limits Our MXO research programs are finite in duration, but the revolutionary advancements they drive create lasting change. Learn more about recent and ongoing efforts across our key thrust areas. | See all DARPA programs _Use these filters to narrow your results by research topic or status.

Search by keyword to find your specific MXO program. _ The Additive Manufacturing of MicrosystEms (AMME) program aims to transform the fabrication of 3D non-planar microsystems by developing new materials and additive manufacturing (AM) technologies. It seeks to create an innovative AM process capable of simultaneously printing high-resolution conductors and insulators at high throughput, surpassing current capabilities.

The Area-Multiplied Photonic-crystal Enhanced Devices (AMPED) program aims to establish a new class of high-power semiconductor lasers. The Advanced Sources for Single-event Effects Radiation Testing (ASSERT) program aims to revolutionize radiation-hardened microelectronics by developing compact, laboratory-scale alternatives to heavy-ion test facilities.

ASSERT will provide compact, readily-accessible alternatives to current heavy-ion test facilities with the goal of reducing the time to design, test, and deploy radiation-qualified components by a factor of 10.

The Computational Imaging Detection and Ranging (CIDAR) challenge aims to explore the potential of computational imaging tools and techniques to drastically enhance the accuracy of passive ranging for tactical and civil applications. The Compact Front-End Filters at the Element-Level (COFFEE) program aims to develop a new class of integrable, high-frequency RF filters for next-generation wideband arrays.

### Brightest Minds in Science and Engineering Our MXO program managers are visionary leaders whose experience spans industry, government, and academia. They conceive, plan, and oversee the high-risk R&D efforts for which we are best known. | See all DARPA program managers #### Search our Program Managers _Use these filters to narrow your results by research topic or date.

Search by keyword to find a specific MXO program manager or their research interests. _ Jason Chou, Ph. D.

, has research focuses on creating technological surprise through advanced photonics, signal processing, AI/ML algorithms, mW/mmW/THz systems, high performance computing, unconventional computing, and integrated photonic and electronic circuits. Jeffrey Daulton, Ph. D.

, has research interests pursuing paradigm-disrupting technologies that use approaches underpinned by physics, chemistry, AI/ML, and advanced processing to break the typical trade space in design of advanced microelectronics and materials. Travis Autry, Ph. D.

, joined DARPA in May 2026 as a program manager and has research interests in quantum nanophotonics, quantum sensing and entanglement, Positioning Navigation Timing (PNT), integrated photonics, optoelectronic semiconductor, and MEMS devices. John M. Hoffman, Ph.

D. , has research interests that lie at the intersection of biotechnology, microsystems, and computer science, as well as sequencing by expansion (SBX) technology. David Meyer, Ph.

D. , has research interests that include electronic, optoelectronic, and acoustic applications of ultrawide bandgap materials and devices, parallelization of microscale and nanoscale additive manufacturing, and multifunctional distributed membrane microsystems. Julian McMorrow, Ph.

D. , has research interests that include expeditionary manufacturing, organic and nanomaterial electronics, radiation hardened electronics, and unconventional computing. Huanan Zhang, Ph.

D. , has research interests that include advanced semiconductor processing technologies and microsystems for biological applications. Thomas Schratwieser, Ph.

D. , has research interests that include power storage, solid-state lasers, optics, high-energy effects, metrology, and position, navigation, and timing (PNT). His areas of interest include spanning atomic and quantum physics, magnetic materials, radio frequency (RF) communications, and photonics.

Michael Holmes is the managing director of the Next Generation Microelectronics Manufacturing (NGMM) program. The research interests of Shauna Sweet, Ph. D.

, include high-assurance complex systems design and development, psychometric modeling and measurement theory, generative AI, modeling and simulation, and the design and deployment of synthetic data for system and algorithm test and evaluation. Justin Cohen, Ph. D.

, has research interests that include quantum photonics, precision measurement, acousto-optics, and integrated photonics. Michael Sangillo's objective is to enable rapid manufacturing and deployment of disruptive microsystem technologies that have immediate national security applications. Todd Bauer, Ph.

D. , has professional interests which include radiation-hardened microsystems, microsystems fabrication, and supply chain assurance. His areas of interest include sensors, security and microfabrication.

Anna Tauke-Pedretti, Ph. D. , has research interests that include compound semiconductor devices, optoelectronics, and heterogeneously integrated microsystems.

Daniel Ridge's research interests include high-performance computing, vulnerability assessment, media forensics, and the design and lifecycle of embedded systems. Jonathan Hoffman, Ph. D.

, has research interests that include quantum sensing and information science, PNT, optics, and photonics. MXO leadership is responsible for guiding and overseeing the research and development activities within specific technical areas. * Whitney Mason, Ph.

D. , has research interests which include imaging sensors that provide multifunction capability. * Jonathan Hoffman, Ph.

D. , has research interests that include quantum sensing and information science, PNT, optics, and photonics. Embark on a journey of innovation and impact!

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