Award Data

In this Small Business Innovation Research Phase I project, Amsen Technologies is teamed with the Center for Advanced Materials (CAM) of University of Houston to develop a process to fabricate BST thin film capacitors with reduced series resistance through an innovative interface optimization strategy. The overall objective of the present innovation is to grow epitaxial or highly oriented BST th ...

To further advance the characterization and utility of microcantilevers, next generation optical detectors with higher frequency response, improved displacement resolution and lower noise for weak signal detection are needed. Consequently, Radiation Monitoring Devices, Inc. (RMD) will develop a turnkey optical detector module for use in characterizing the displacement and resonant frequencies of m ...

In Phase 1, TIAX developed and demonstrated a residential energy monitoring system (R-EMS) with potential national energy savings of $20 billion annually. Based on user requirements and well-established systems engineering methodology, TIAX’s R-EMS solution is inexpensive, easy to install and operate, and is supportive of intuitive decision making about energy usage. In Phase 2, TIAX will extend ...

Microalgae are a promising feedstock for biofuels because of their high oil content, excellent CO2 capture, and ability to use brackish water and non-arable land. The extraction of oil from algae represents a challenging cost barrier to commercial biofuel production. Conventional technologies for algal oil extraction are energy-inefficient, cost-intensive, or non scalable, leading to barriers for ...

A back-illuminated planar InGaAs photodiode tested to have 95% quantum effiiency (QE) at 1550 nm, area greater than 1 mm2, low capacitance (125 MHz) will be improved. Although the existing Phase I device exhibited bulk material dark current generation better than commercially available devices, the sidewall-generated dark current was found to dominate the noise equiva ...

Leveraging Agiltron¿s recent breakthrough in the broad band and tunable photonic high-Q factor RF filtering technique, we propose to develop a high-spectral-purity, low-phase-noise, spurs-free opto-electronic oscillator (OEO) operating at W-band for the NIST applications. Based on our unique technical approach and successful development in low loss fiber optics, RF photonic components/modules, an ...

Proposed here is the continued development of an innovative rheometer configuration design at NIST. It describes the determination of suitable detection, drive, control, software and assembly designs for a commercially viable, fully integrated device. The initial efforts will concentrate on examining the sub-systems of the design. An important feature of the proposed strategy is early commercial i ...

Carbon nanotubes are one of the most studied and potentially useful nanoparticles known. However, presently even the purest are only commercially available in mixtures of chiralities and lengths. Even though numerous lab scale methods to separate them have been demonstrated, few offer the potential to be scaled and offered as a product. Eikos has found that, for many applications, nanotube length ...

NOAA supports over 25,000 underwater dive programs per year. To increase the duration and depth of these dives, the use of closed circuit mixed gas rebreathers (CCRs) is being considered. As there currently are no sensors to detect CO2 levels in the breathing gas, Giner, Inc. proposes to continue development of an electrochemical CO2 sensor for CCR use. The technical innovation is the use of a ...

The medical device market rises rapidly as innovation produces a stream of new applications. The added mobility offered by wireless telemetry is fueling a trend of wirelessly networked devices. Standard wireless interfaces like ISO/IEEE 11073 are increasingly being adopted for interoperability. This boosts the proliferation of wireless medical devices yet also generates reliability challenges due ...