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Advanced Development for Defense Science and Technology

Award Information
Agency: Department of Defense
Branch: Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency
Contract: W31P4Q-09-C-0249
Agency Tracking Number: 07SB2-0096
Amount: $746,542.00
Phase: Phase II
Program: SBIR
Solicitation Topic Code: SB072-006
Solicitation Number: 2007.2
Timeline
Solicitation Year: 2007
Award Year: 2009
Award Start Date (Proposal Award Date): 2009-04-20
Award End Date (Contract End Date): 2011-07-30
Small Business Information
1570 Pacheco Street, Suite E-11
Santa Fe, NM 87505
United States
DUNS: 153579891
HUBZone Owned: No
Woman Owned: No
Socially and Economically Disadvantaged: No
Principal Investigator
 David Bomse
 Principal Research Scient
 (505) 984-1322
 dbomse@swsciences.com
Business Contact
 Alan Stanton
Title: President
Phone: (505) 984-1322
Email: astanton@swsciences.com
Research Institution
N/A
Abstract

This SBIR project is designed to develop a high-sensitivity optical spectroscopic method for rapid health screening and monitoring including warfighter field diagnostics and, potentially, detection of chemical warfare agents. The method called noise-immune, cavity-enhanced, optical heterodyne spectroscopy (NICE-OHMS) was invented about 10 years ago, but has been considered too complex for commercial development. We are taking advantage of recent improvements in enabling technologies to make NICE-OHMS reliable, rugged, and portable. We anticipate, by the end of Phase II, two-to-four orders of magnitude sensitivity improvement over competing spectroscopic methods with only a modest increase in cost. All previous NICE-OHMS research has used gas samples at reduced pressure because the laser modulation conditions are dictated by the widths of the spectroscopic lines being probed. These widths increase with increasing pressure. One key part of our work is shifting operation to atmospheric pressure samples. This has the obvious advantage of simplifying NICE-OHMS by eliminating vacuum pumps and control valves; on the other hand it requires modulation frequencies exceeding 1 GHz. Suitable inexpensive components have only recently become commercially available. These were tested successfully in Phase I and are key parts of the Phase II prototype spectrometer.

* Information listed above is at the time of submission. *

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