[patio11]

It's going to be expensive, may not meaningfully improve survival in actual combat situations, and may not actually be successfully deployed.

How could this be extraordinarily effective at stopping bullets but not meaningfully improve survival? Fairly few American soldiers are killed by gunfire which directly strikes them; even fewer of these soldiers are killed by gunfire which directly strikes them on their armor. (This is partly because armor is fairly effective, partly because bullets are often non-fatal, and partly because medical care is very good.) Improved body armor may not meaningfully improve survival against other threats such as, for example, IEDs (once 60%+ of fatalities, down these days) or "the helicopter impacted terrain at a high rate of speed."

[mrob]

If existing armor is already effective enough, improved materials means we can have the same effectiveness at lower weight. This could improve survival by increasing mobility or allowing soldiers to carry heavier non-armor equipment.

[PhantomGremlin]

What about vehicle armor?

Something like this would be a great improvement over the very heavy homebrew plating that our guys in Iraq and Afghanistan were forced to improvise on their Humvees? I.e. before MRAP type vehicles made it into the field.

Lighter and better armor isn't just for people, it's also for vehicles.

[InclinedPlane]

It's actually very similar in a lot of ways to chobham armor, which is layers of ceramic and high strength metal in a composite structure. This seems to work similarly but with a more consistent mixture of both materials throughout a material, which might make it easier to manufacture and to work with, and possibly lighter as well.