Award Data

The recent emergence of the Silicon Drift detector (SDD), for use in energy dispersive x-ray spectrometry (EDS), has made possible x-ray event streams with count rates as high as 1-10 Mcps. A problem with existing digital signal processing, as applied to SDDs, is the significant presence of coincidence peaks above the x-ray background. These coincidence peaks occur with amplitudes comparable to lo ...

DNA microarray technology, in combination with statistical and predictive modeling tools, could be used to evaluate thousands of genes against distinct gene expression patterns induced by chemical/biological agents to provide early identification and speed therapeutic intervention. The overall objective of this Phase II effort is to leverage existing public domain resources and commercial tools t ...

Technology research and development in such areas as next-generation atomic clocks, quantum information processing with trapped ions, and atomic spectroscopy is impeded by the lack of commercially available laser sources that meet the required specifications of wavelength tuning range, output power, frequency-stability and reliability. Arete Associates is developing frequency-stable Optically Pump ...

The characterization of biologically relevant polymetric materials is a major focus of the bioinstrumentation industry. Of particular interest is the rapid, direct sequencing of DNA through a nanopore as well as the characterization of other biopolymers. Although progress has been made with nanopore sequencing, some fundamental instrumental and system issues have so far kept the method from realiz ...

In recent years, there has been increasing concern about the role of man-made sound on the marine environment. For this effort, we propose developing an intuitive software interface for sound propagation modeling. This will be based on software developed at HLS Research, Inc. for similar applications. The software will use existing propagation modeling codes that have a long history in the unde ...

There is a need to advance the state of the art low power, portable autonomous underwater hydrophones for recording fish spawning calls and other marine acoustics. Affordable and reliable autonomous underwater vehicle (AUV) mountable hydrophones that can detect such signals in the presence of AUV motor noise are required. A system that includes software to automatically determine fish size, type ...

Fabrication of stable, nearly 100% internal carrier collection efficiency silicon photodiodes (AXUV diodes) for 1 nm to 600 nm photons was successfully demonstrated by us several years ago. Owing to their excellent characteristics, these devices are being used by NIST as transfer standards in 5 nm to 250 nm range and aboard SOHO, SNOE and TIMED instruments for the EUV solar spectrum studies. Alt ...

In this SBIR Phase II program, Los Gatos Research (LGR) proposes to design, develop and test an advanced laser-based gas analyzer optimized for chemical weapon exposure studies based on cavity enhanced absorption in the mid-infrared spectral region. Building on the successful Phase I effort, this analyzer will provide sensitive and accurate quantification of several chemical weapons agents throug ...

An innovative optical system with 500X higher ¿tendu and spatial resolution will be designed for CCD-based bistatic lidar. A 100¿ vertical field of view is required to image the laser beam from the ground through the boundary layer, but only a few degrees are required in the horizontal direction. The proposed design is based on dividing the vertical field of view into N sectors, using 1D rasteri ...

During the Phase I SBIR project Optical Physics Company (OPC) investigated a three axis interferometer instrument which measures the one dimensional linear translation and the two-dimensional angular deflection in pitch and yaw of a 7 mm mirror 18-23 cm away. Lab demonstrations both before and during the Phase I effort showed performance parameters better than NIST requirements. The Phase I effort ...