Company
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Back to Company SearchTUNOPTIX INC
UEI: JXPAYYV4U9J5
Number of Employees: 5
HUBZone Owned: No
Woman Owned: No
Socially and Economically Disadvantaged: No
SBIR/STTR Involvement
Year of first award: 2020
2
Phase I Awards
3
Phase II Awards
150%
Conversion Rate
$348,448
Phase I Dollars
$4,663,752
Phase II Dollars
$5,012,200
Total Awarded
Awards
Meta-optical spectral imaging via computation for lightweight hyperspectral imaging
Amount: $1,673,061 Topic: NASAS1.12
Tunoptix will utilize meta-optical components paired with a dielectric color filter to produce a narrowband, high signal-to-noise ratio (SNR), and high field of view (FOV) light detection and ranging (LIDAR) system in the green wavelengths with a 100 mm aperture. This system will consist of two meta-optics, a collimation lens and a focusing lens that are integrated with a laser linewidth dielectric filter. The meta-optic collimation lens will consist of a matrix of individual meta-optic in an array. When compared with traditional solutions, the meta-optic solution will exhibit lower system complexity, size, and weight. In the base proposal, a scaled down version of the final meta-optics will be demonstrated and tested both component-wise and integrated as a system. Tunoptix will determine the etendue-limited performance bound and optimize the meta-optics to approach it. Following the base, option 1 will be the fabrication and characterization of the full 100 mm aperture meta-optic. In option 2, Tunoptix will utilize the multiplexed design of the meta-optic, asymmetries in the design, and computational imaging techniques to determine the angular spectrum of the incident light.
Tagged as:
SBIR
Phase II
2024
DOD
NAVY
Asymmetric Visibility via Designer Obscurants and Computational Photonics
Amount: $1,499,900 Topic: HR001119S0035-24
This DARPA-STTR program aims to research and develop a computational and theoretical framework to assess the extent of asymmetric visibility through an externally tunable nanoparticle-based obscurant cloud, and how much such asymmetry can be enhanced by using a computational backend. Essentially, we will explore how the previous knowledge of the statistics of the obscurant can help the computational reconstruction and can be exploited to enhance the asymmetry. We will identify fundamental limits in progressively sophisticated schemes, ranging from simple nanoparticle geometrical anisotropy to switching-based coded aperture schemes in tandem with computational reconstruction. We will develop fundamental limits in optics-only scenarios of passive, active, and nonreciprocal nanoparticles, as well as optics-plus-computational-imaging scenarios for which there is little understanding of the limits to what is possible. Information theoretic metrics will be used to identify such limits as well as design the system. A complete end-to-end design framework will be established to co-optimize the obscurant with the computational backend. This framework will employ a forward model consisting of multi-scale electromagnetic simulation coupled with computational reconstruction. The inverse design process will employ an automatic differentiation approach. We will perform experimental measurements testing the theoretical predictions, with a key goal being the measurement of computation-based visibility enhancements beyond the optics-only fundamental limits. A successful program would identify optimal long-term pathways for one-way visibility, the possible material systems, control schemes, metrics, and fundamental principles for achieving them. Three classes of NPs exhibiting anisotropic scattering patterns will be studied: one with geometrical anisotropy, which can be actively tuned by photoinduced structural changes, such as plasmon-enhanced volume changes. We will determine fundamental bounds that will likely tradeoff between asymmetric visibility and total transmissivity. In the second class, we will consider nanoparticles that support (reciprocal) gain, whereupon stimulated emission can be activated to generate asymmetric visibility that goes beyond the passivity bounds. Finally, going beyond the reciprocal passive and gain cases, we will consider particles with nonreciprocal responses, induced by nonlinear and/or magneto-optical effects, and develop the theory for ultimate bounds on nonreciprocity-based asymmetric visibility.
Tagged as:
STTR
Phase II
2023
DOD
DARPA
Meta-optical computational imaging systems for large aperture, aberration-free imaging
Amount: $1,490,791 Topic: HR001119S0035-24
Large aperture optics are important for various applications including remote sensing and gigapixel imaging, but such optics are generally very heavy. For example, the optics in the Hubble telescope (aperture of ~ 2m) are on the order of 1000 kg. The emerging field of meta-optics, which utilizes arrays of sub-wavelength nano-scatterers to manipulate wave-fronts can drastically reduce the size and weight of optical systems. Each scatterer is individually engineered and arranged in a precisely aligned grid to enable optical functionalities that are difficult, if not impossible to achieve using conventional refractive optics. Moreover, these flat optical elements can be ultrathin, with active layer thicknesses on the order of a single optical wavelength. However, the imaging performance and achievable apertures of the most sophisticated meta-optics are currently constrained by fundamental limitations of electromagnetic responses, Seidel aberrations, available electromagnetic design software, and practical manufacturing challenges. Tunoptix proposes to address these limitations by using a photolithography compatible metasurface-based computational imaging system where the metasurface is supported by an image processing backend to produce high fidelity, aberration-free images. Tunoptix’s effort is comprised of three complementary thrusts focused on: (1) the design and optimization of centimeter and decimeter-scale meta-optics with accompanying reconstruction software, (2) the development of a scalable photolithography fabrication process for centimeter and decimeter-scale metasurfaces, and (3) the characterization of the fabricated metalenses and data acquisition for use in learned reconstruction models. In thrust (1), Tunoptix will use metasurface scatterer geometries described by simple shapes such as square pillars with modest aspect ratios to make our designs easily compatible with conventional deep UV photolithography techniques. Instead of using difficult-to-fabricate intricate scatterer geometries to correct optical aberrations, Tunoptix will instead leverage computational imaging techniques to perform image reconstruction. In thrust (2), Tunoptix will fabricate the centimeter-scale designs by using a foundry service. The metasurface designs will be amended such that they fall within the design rules of the chosen foundry service. In addition, to fabricate decimeter-scale designs, a step-and-stitch process will be developed to minimize the required reticles. In thrust (3), the fabricated metalenses will be fully measured in terms of their chromatic and Seidel aberrations by measuring their point spread functions and characterized in terms of their dependence on incident wavelength, angle of incidence, and object depth. These point spread functions will then be used to reconstruct high quality images in lab and real-world settings. A learned reconstruction algorithm will then be fine-tuned using the point spread function and imaging data.
Tagged as:
STTR
Phase II
2021
DOD
DARPA
Meta-optical spectral imaging via computation for compact lightweight hyperspectral imaging
Amount: $124,030 Topic: S1
Achieving NASA#39;s strategic goal of #39;Expanding Human Knowledge through New Scientific Discoveries#39; requires high-performance instrumentation capable of operating under extreme conditions while maintaining a low size, weight, and power. Hyperspectral imaging (HSI) systems represent a class of instruments that have played a significant role in previous NASA missions in remote sensing andnbsp;planetary surveying on Earth and other planetary systems. The HSI systems on these missions have relied onnbsp;bulky opticsnbsp;that also require large system sizes to achieve high spectral resolution. The large size and mass of these spectrometers represent a significant barrier to widespread adoption due to the opportunity cost of the space, weight, and power consumption.Tunoptix proposes to utilize meta-optics in conjunction with computational imaging to drastically reduce the SWaP of HSI systems while maintaining high spectral and spatial resolution. A meta-optic consists of an arraynbsp;of subwavelength scatterers, which locally control the amplitude, phase, and spectrum of incident light with high spatial resolution. A metasurface is optically thin, with an active layer thickness of of less than a micrometer, and total optical thickness on the order of millimeters.nbsp;Tunoptix will develop a HSI system based on an optical front-endnbsp;and computational back-end. This approach leverages the unique ability of meta-optics to implement near-arbitrary optical functionalitiesnbsp;to implement a well-conditionednbsp;wavelength-dependent transformation on incident light. This will then be decoded using a low latency postprocessing algorithm to extract a high-fidelity hyperspectral image. With this method, Tunoptix well demonstrate a compact, snapshot polarization independent HSI system with F/1.8, a 10 cm xnbsp; 8 cm x 4 cm form factor, and a mass of less than 1nbsp;kgnbsp;operating over a bandwidth of 350-1050 nm, and with over 40 channels.nbsp;
Tagged as:
SBIR
Phase I
2021
NASA
Fabrication and Testing of Large Aperture Achromatic Visible Metalens for Imaging Applications
Amount: $224,418 Topic: HR001119S0035-24
We aim to improve the imaging quality of metasurface-based image sensors by using a stack of freeform metasurfaces made of silicon nitride nanopillars and computational post-processing. Multiple metasurfaces will be used to engineer the incident wavefront, which will be further processed using computational algorithms. We will primarily focus on using this computational imaging approach to capture high quality images for human perception that have high resolution, high signal-to-noise ratio, and are free of chromatic and geometric aberrations. We will use a composite metasurface optical system that creates an extended depth of focus, which allows capturing the information from the scene in full color in addition to correcting for geometric aberrations. We will build an end-to-end image processing model that allows us to optimize both the metasurface optical system itself, in addition to the parameters used for the computational reconstruction algorithm.
Tagged as:
STTR
Phase I
2020
DOD
DARPA