Award Data

This SBIR Phase I project is aimed at developing smooth diamond-coated cutting tools, using a novel deposition technology that provides an ultra-nanocrystalline diamond (UNCD) coating on various substrates. Advanced Diamond Technologies, Inc. (ADT) has developed a new diamond coating technology that, unlike other diamond technologies, is extremely smooth and exhibits much lower friction as deposit ...

This Small Business Technology Transfer (STTR) Phase I project will develop commercially viable atomic force microscope (AFM) cantilevers with ultra-sharp, ultra-robust tips fabricated from ultrananocrystalline diamond (UNCD). AFM is becoming indispensable in several industries for imaging, metrology, material property measurement, process control, and manipulation. These applications are reaching ...

This Small Business Innovation Research Phase I project will determine the feasibility of making foundry-quality MEMS starter wafers composed of ultrananocrystalline diamond (UNCD) on SiO2 and on Si (diamond-on-insulator, DOI) in a strategy similar to silicon-on-insulator (SOI) wafers. The research team has solved problems of thickness uniformity, sp3/sp2 ratio uniformity, grain size uniformity, a ...

This Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Phase I research project aims to develop an optical technology for population-wide colon cancer screening by means of a simple, inexpensive, minimally intrusive and accurate optical rectal test that would forego the need for bowel cleansing. The technology is based on low-coherence enhanced backscattering (LEBS), an optical technique which enables th ...

This Small Business Technology Transfer (STTR) Phase I research project explores novel wireless antenna technologies based on one or two dimensional metamaterial structures. The basic approach is to compress, twist, and fragment (CTF) metal strips or discs in a multi-layer structure to form self-tuned, bandwidth optimized, and miniaturized antennas. A concept of dispersion band engineering is intr ...

This Small Business Innovation Research project investigates and explores the feasibility of commercializing bug detection tools to improve the quality and productivity of a variety of software developed by various industry segments. The tools are based on state-of-art data-mining tools under development at the University of Illinois. The proposed project will improve the accuracy, usability and ...

This STTR Phase I research will develop detection methods using allosteric DNAzymes (aptazymes) to detect cyanobacterial toxins that occur throughout the world in both fresh and brackish water. Cyanotoxins present a public safety hazard through contamination of drinking water supplies by blue-green algae (cyanobacteria), and sensitive detection of cyanotoxins has been a long-standing challenge. Al ...

Lead in household paint and dust is a serious health hazard, as low level lead exposure can result in a number of adverse health effects, especially in children. Onsite and real time detection and quantification of lead in paint/dust are very important to homeowners and certified lead based paint removal professionals. Toward this end, both field-portable equipment (such as X ray fluorescence ins ...

This Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Phase I research project will develop a teacher professional development tool, to support teachers' collaborative reflection on video of their own practice. This tool will address the conceptual challenges teachers face when examining, reflecting on and discussing instructional practice, as well as the technical challenges of preparing, annotating, an ...

Reduction in dependency of imported petroleum and the quest to identify renewable energy sources has lead to a search for innovative biofuels derived from renewable biomass, that promise long-term reductions in greenhouse gas emissions. Butanol is one possible biofuel. It is an industrial fuel that can be produced from crops using acetone-butanol (AB) fermentation by butanolagenic microbes, such ...