Award Data

This Small Business Technology Transfer (STTR) Phase I project aims to develop a manufacturing process that can coat a variety of substrates with uniform thin films of inherently conducting polymer (ICP) nanofibers over a large area. Traditionally, these nanostructured organic materials are difficult to process into thin films covering a large area, which has limited the commercial applicability ...

This STTR Phase I project proposes to develop and establish a novel clumping (flocculation) strain of algal using an engineered extracellar protein that can be induced. The overarching goal is to provide the industry with a novel, energy efficient, and cost effective tool to dewater microalgae. What are the broader/commercial impacts of the proposed project? The broader/commercial impact of the p ...

This Small Business Technology Transfer Phase I project aims to develop highly sensitive and inexpensive uncooled microbolometers using ultra-thin films of metals, metal oxides, or semi-metals. These microbolometers will be attractive for use in portable night vision devices and other thermal imaging applications that require a Noise Equivalent Temperature Difference (NETD) of less than 20 mK. We ...

This Small Business Technology Transfer Phase I project seeks to develop a flexible, pressure-sensitive membrane comprising chemically functionalized multiwalled carbon nanotubes (f-MWCNTs) to address several issues that hamper the use of existing piezoresistive membrane materials: a) interfacial integrity, b) fatigue life related to the number of pressure application cycles, and c) cost effective ...

This Small Business Technology Transfer (STTR) Phase I project aims to develop a highly-efficient and cost-effective plasma-based method for graphene mass production. The approach is to utilize unique properties of magnetically controlled arc discharge to couple the plasma production of carbon species and the synthesis of graphene. The broader/commercial impact of this project will be the potenti ...

This Small Business Technology Transfer Research (STTR) Phase I project uses single-wall carbon nanotubes (SWNTs) conjugated with monoclonal antibodies (MAbs) to target the SWNTs to tumor cells. SWNTs convert near-infrared (NIR) light to heat and enable the selective photo-thermal ablation of tumor cells upon irradiation of tissues with NIR. To achieve the goal of targeted photo-thermal ablation o ...

This Small Business Technology Transfer Program Phase I project aims to develop a refreshable Braille display for the blind. Existing Braille technologies require complicated mechanical designs that are bulky and too expensive for personal use. A new technology based on a new smart material (bistable electroactive polymer) will be developed to enable a Braille dot array on a thin flat panel. The ...

This Small Business Technology Transfer (STTR) Phase I project aims to develop high efficiency polymers for organic photovoltaic cells (OPVs). OPVs based on polymers are ideal for environmentally-benign and affordable energy generation. However, the efficiency of OPVs is still low compared to their inorganic counterparts, currently at 7.9%. One of the major reasons is the lack of polymers with ...

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This Small Business Technology Transfer (STTR) Phase II project will build upon and extend the encouraging results obtained in the Phase I program, which investigated the properties of thin, electrically conductive, UV transparent films and tri-layer metal coatings as possible diamond switch electrode structures for power electronics. Phase I benchmarked UV transmission, electrical conductivity an ...