Award Data

Actoprobe LLC proposes development of a novel class of Atomic Force Microscopy (AFM) active optical probes with dramatically increased sensitivity and spatial resolution for Near-Field Optical Nanospectroscopy and Nanoscopy. The innovation is accomplished by integrating a diode laser source and a photodetector into a silicon AFM probe in such a way that both the AFM tip and detector are inside the ...

During Phase I, Management Sciences, Inc. (MSI) proved feasibility of adapting their current technology into a product capable of improving performance resulting in increased efficiency and extended life cycles of heat pumps. The resultant product is a tool named the Heat Pump Sentient (HP-Sentient). The HP-Sentient will improve performance and reduce maintenance costs through aggressive goal-seek ...

Public and commercial application of NOAA developed products such as climate observations, weather products, and datasets are underutilized by public decision makers, infrastructure asset owners, or the public. Communities realize the risk posed by increases in storm intensity, flooding, and heat waves. However, communities lack understandable models targets to stakeholder questions that are affor ...

Recent theoretical studies of eddy flux correlation have suggested that the commonly used assumption of dry air having no net flux is erroneous and can lead to significant errors in reported observations. Presently, dry air density is calculated indirectly from measured temperature, pressure and relative humidity, all of which contribute to increased uncertainties in the result. If instead the den ...

Millions of heat pumps are used to heat and cool homes and buildings year round. Continuous operation means that components wear out at a greater rate. As a result, maintenance of residential heat pumps is a major cost driver. Current methods focus on reduced use through control settings. Typically, demand has wide swings throughout the day and people are unable to customize controls. Inevitably, ...

X-ray fluorescence spectroscopy is a widely used and extremely sensitive analytical technique for qualitative and quantitative chemical analysis. Superconducting Transition Edge Sensor (TES) microcalorimeter detectors have now been developed that achieve an energy resolution of 2 eV for 1.5 keV X-rays, which is sufficient to enable the measurement of the small shift of the X-ray line position that ...

X-ray fluorescence spectroscopy is a widely used and extremely sensitive analytical technique for qualitative as well as quantitative chemical analysis. Superconducting Transition Edge Sensor (TES) microcalorimeter detectors have now been developed that achieve an energy resolution of 2 eV (full width at half maximum) for 1.5 keV X-rays, which is sufficient to enable the measurement of the small s ...

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 ...