Small efficient cathodes have many applications in miniature space propulsion. Current thermionic emission cathodes have many drawbacks. These include low efficiency, difficulty of control and pulsation, and lack of miniaturization. ANI has developedproprietary thin film nanotube technologies that… More

This SBIR project is to develop field emission electric propulsion (FEEP) thruster using carbon nanotubes (CNT) integrated anode. FEEP thrusters have gained considerable attention for spacecrafts disturbance compensation because of excellent characteristics. The application of current FEEP has been… More

High density, uniform electron beam (e-beam) is required in the EBIT to produce highly charged ions (HCIs), better confinement of HCIs, and facilitate analysis and interpretation of data. A novel high density e-beam system using carbon nanotube (CNT) field emitters is proposed to upgrade NIST EBIT… More

Field emission electric propulsion (FEEP) thrusters have gained considerable attention for spacecrafts disturbance compensation because of excellent characteristics. The application of current FEEP has been slow in developing mainly caused by high specific power, which limit the milli-Newton… More

79658B The reliable fabrication of high performance point electron sources is required for scanning transmission electron microscopy (STEM) systems with brightness greater than 109 Amp/cm2/steradian at an extraction voltage of 100 kV. Conventional point sources require a high vacuum for stable… More

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): Substantial technological growth has spurred a new interest in imaging techniques, and their usage has grown considerably. High-resolution small animal imaging systems have emerged as important new tools for laboratory animal research. X-ray imaging is widely… More

The conventional thermionic cathodes used in traveling wave tubes (TWTs) suffer from many technical limitations including limited current density, poor energy efficiency, difficulty of control, and lack of miniaturization. Xintek, Inc. has developed proprietary technologies for fabrication of high… More

The exceptional properties of carbon nanotubes that have prompted potential applications rely on their atomic structure. While the sensitivity of nanotube properties on structural features has been extensively investigated through theoretical analysis and numerical simulations, in practice there is… More

We propose in this project to develop carbon nanotubes (CNTs) based field emission cathodes with high current density and long lifetime in pulsed and continuous beam operation for traveling wave tube applications. In phase I, we have successfully demonstrated high current density (>1 A/cm2) from our… More

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): This is a revised Phase II application based on 2006 application and reviewers' comments. In this version, we made significant modifications, including: change the two rings cathode design to three rings structure, addi ng the synchronization gating control… More

This SBIR Phase I project is aimed at demonstrating the feasibility and synthesis of carbon nanotubes (CNTs) containing few walls, as opposed to the single- and multi-wall CNTs available in the market today. CNT-based field emission devices require high quality CNTs to improve emission uniformity,… More

This Small Business Innovation Research Phase II project addresses scaled up production of high quality carbon nanotube (CNT) field emitters, which are promising electron sources that can potentially overcome the limitations of thermionic source based devices. The current commercially available CNTs… More

This Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Phase I project aims to develop high-performance polymer nanocomposites containing functionalized few-walled carbon nanotubes (FWNT). First, the synthesis conditions for FWNTs will be optimized to identify the best FWNTs for composites application. … More

This Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Phase I project aims to develop an integrated carbon nanotube (CNT) cold cathode structure for high power vacuum electronic devices including x-ray sources and microwave tubes. This project will utilize a proprietary CNT electrophoretic deposition… More

Breast cancer is the most common cancer type among women. Early detection is viewed as the best approach to decrease breast cancer mortality. Digital breast tomosynthesis (DBT), a 3-D imaging modality, is generally considered as the next generation screening device with improved performance compared… More