Award Data

The NIST patented six-degree of freedom micropositioner technology associated with this subtopic has been identified by E M Optomechanical, Inc. (EMOM) as a technology that could be incorporated into the company¿s long-working distance interference microscopes. A key element in these microscopes is a piezo-actuator device, installed in a manual pitch/yaw mount, which translates a small flat mirro ...

Modern supercontinuum (SC) light sources are generated by non-linear interactions between ultrashort laser pulses and optical fibers. These light sources have high brightness and are spatially coherent. Output in near-ultraviolet to near-infrared wavelength ranges has been demonstrated. SC wavelength ranges are constrained by the transmission and dispersion properties of the fibers. Previously, ou ...

Southwest Sciences¿ Phase 2 SBIR project will lead to development of residential fire sensing systems based on recently developed, low cost temperature and optical imaging sensors combined with newly introduced highly miniaturized, micropower CO sensors. Sensor modules will be part of a low power wireless network. Each module will be about ½ the size of a business card, a few mm thick, and w ...

A key factor of international efforts to identify and suppress the supply of and demand for nuclear materials, and thereby to deter potential traffickers, is the ability to accurately identify contradicted material and ultimately to trace it back to its origin. Alpha particle spectroscopy is widely used in nuclear forensics to assay trace quantities of sensitive nuclear materials, but the limited ...

Commercial-scale marine aquaculture has the potential to balance the increasing demand for high-quality seafood products with the harvest capacity of our nation¿s oceans. However, water reuse in recirculating aquaculture systems (RAS) is limited by the accumulation of nitrate (NO3), which is toxic to many species in high concentrations. Therefore, NO3 removal by denitrification presents a press ...

We propose research to develop and demonstrate a deeply submersible video plankton recording system (ViPR) to perform image recording of plankton. The ViPR will apply artificial intelligence to 2-D or 3-D imaging using pattern recognition for a statistically reliable survey of plankton using two cameras, one for larger zooplankton and the other for microplankton. The ViPR computer will be PC compl ...

Ocean waves are well-known to be the most hazardous of ocean environmental conditions affecting vessel operations. The vast majority of incidents responded to by the U.S. Coast Guard, injuries and fatalities, and damage to or sinking of vessels (particularly small craft) are wave-related. Recognizing the considerable spatial and temporal variability of waves in coastal areas, research will desig ...

A low-cost superconducting transition edge sensor (TES) microcalorimeter spectrometer is described for high energy and high spatial resolution X-ray energy dispersive spectroscopy and microanalysis. The proposed microcalorimeter instrument offers an energy resolution that is comparable to and potentially even better than wavelength dispersive spectrometers, thereby enabling the resolution of inter ...

A long standing problem in oceanography and hydrography is accurate real-time measurement of offshore water levels. The Phase 1 research involved investigating a wide range of recent techniques and technologies, and performing analyses and trade-off studies to evaluate, select, and integrate them into a GPS-tracked buoy system (buoy, shore reference station for differential GPS, and repeater stati ...

A long standing problem in oceanography and hydrography is accurate real-time measurement of offshore water levels. The Phase 1 research involved investigating a wide range of recent techniques and technologies, and performing analyses and trade-off studies to evaluate, select, and integrate them into a GPS-tracked buoy system (buoy, shore reference station for differential GPS, and repeater stati ...