Award Data

Quantifying oceanic CO2 uptake and ocean acidification and understanding their impact on global climate and ocean ecology are key goals of NOAA’s climate change research programs. NOAA’s request for Development of a long-term Lagrangian pH and pCO2 drifter (SBIR Subtopic 8.3.1C) aims to address these goals by developing technology that measures both pCO2 and pH that can be widely deployed in t ...

pathogens in marine aquaculture waters. Phase II research will look to improve sample concentration, cell lysis, and DNA purification techniques that were developed in Phase I. More specifically, optimization of the prototype lysis/elution fluid will be further developed for cell lysis using BSL-1 organisms, Vibrio harveyi, a surrogate for pathogenic Vibrio ssp. Techniques will be developed to ove ...

This is an SBIR Phase II proposal to develop a tactile refreshable computer display prototype (TRCD) that will support multiple tactile alphabets (e.g. ELIA, braille, and Roman), multiple lines of text, and graphics to benefit the more than 1.8 million blind Americans. Commercially available TRCDs are expensive (~$12,000, or $19 per actuator), provide only one line of text (with 640 actuators) and ...

Voxtel has demonstrated efficient high-speed photon counting with thresholded linear-mode avalanche photodiode (APD) receivers using multi-gain-stage InGaAs/InAIAs APDs. In contrast to Geiger APDs, thresholded photon-counting linear APD receivers are thought not to suffer afterpulsing, and can support maximum count rates (MCR) up to 2 or 3 orders of magnitude faster than Geiger APDs. However, the ...

This NIST Phase II SBIR effort will two low noise single photon detectors using MgO doped LiNbO3 (LN) periodically poled waveguides and a 980nm (or similar appropriate wavelength) pump to up convert 1550nm photons to 600nm to allow for detection by photomultiplier tube (PMT). The key innovation is using low noise periodically poled waveguides with a long wavelength (1800nm) pump leading to higher ...

The Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance (ISR) analysts have a challenging task to extract useful information from huge volumes of data from various sources like Full Motion Video (FMV), Wide Area Motion Imagery (WAMI), satellite imagery, Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR), and others. Modern Machine Learning (ML) algorithms based on deep learning have greatly advanced computer vision, speech ...

Conventional characterization and test methods are increasingly ineffective when applied to structures less than 100 nanometers, causing challenges across R&D, process control and failure analysis. An increasing number of subtle defects become prominent drivers of failure as device size and operating margins decrease, e.g., processing anomalies in thin gate oxides, substrate problems related to do ...

In the proposed effort, we will leverage this extensive experience and capabilities to realize a frequency agile mmW radiometer that can cover the range of DC-110 GHz and can be scaled to DC-200 GHz under Phase II. Ours is a photonic system that multiplies and up-coverts a low-frequency reference signal onto an optical carrier (laser) using EO modulation, then uses the modulation sidebands to inj ...

An existing low-cost FPGA-based processing platform will be demonstrated with fiber-coupling to single-photon detectors, to perform photon-arrival time stamping with

A stable, well characterized InGaAs materials growth and photodetector fabrication process will be used to fabricate matched photodiodes optimized for balanced homodyne detection. The 1-mm-diameter p-i-n photodetectors will be manufactured back-illuminated with a 5-micron absorber, allowing residual light to reflect off the front-side metal to make a double pass through the active layer. Ultra-hig ...