Award Data

his project involves the commercialization of the breast phantom designed by NIST and University of California, San Francisco (UCSF) for quantitative magnetic resonance imaging (MRI). The breast phantom consists of two independent phantoms, one focused on diffusion MRI measurements and the other focused on accurate measurements of fat and fibroglandular tissue properties. The proposed phantom is o ...

We aim to create a low-cost, high-sensitivity hand-held plasmonic biosensor capable of sensing biotoxins. We will do this by using newly developed biodesign technology to create a new class of proteins which have an orders-of-magnitude increase in SPR signal-to-noise. These will be incorporated into a novel SPR device in which the transmission of light is affected by the binding of a particular t ...

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 ...

Shelter enclosures for military working dogs in the event of a CB attack is a technology gap identified by the Joint Requirements Office. Important parameters to consider in the design of protective enclosures include low weight and size to minimize transport requirements; rapid setup; and accommodation of canine physiological and psychological comfort needs while providing protection against CB ...

In the proposed Phase I SBIR program, Aymont Technology and CoolCAD Electronics will design and demonstrate prototype silicon carbide (SiC) avalanche photodiodes (APD) specifically designed for high-efficiency, single-photon counting of 121.6 nm Lyman-alpha photons. This detector will be provided to relevant personnel at NIST for calibration and testing. Both discrete APDs and arrays will be used ...

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 ...

A wireless sensor and actuator network capable of providing precision time synchronization between the nodes of the network will be developed. The IEEE 1451.0 smart transducer interface and IEEE 1588 time synchronization standards will be combined, with additional software and hardware to provide synchronization between the clocks on the Wireless Transducer Interface Modules (WTIM) sensors/actuato ...

The vertical water vapor profile into the atmosphere is measured around the world using balloon-borne radiosondes that take measurements twice a day when the balloons are launched. The objective of this proposal is to establish the feasibility of measuring the amount of water vapor vertically, in the atmosphere as a function of altitude using a Light Detection and Ranging (lidar) operating in the ...

MCNC PROPOSES A FEASIBILITY STUDY AND EVALUATION OF THREE PROMISING APPROACHES TO THE FABRICATION OF SURFACE TEST STRUCTURES ON SILICON. SURFACE FEATURES ON THE FIRST STRUCTURE WILL BE PRODUCED BY CONTROLLABLY ETCHING THERMALLYGROWN OXIDES. FEATURES ON THE SECOND WILL BE MADE BY ETCHING PIEZOELECTRIC THIN FILMS. USING THE PIEZOELECTRIC FILM AS PART OF A CAPACITOR, STEP-HEIGHT CAN BE VARIED AND PRO ...

THE FUNDAMENTAL GOAL FOR THIS RESEARCH EFFORT IS TO DEVELOP A GREATER UNDERSTANDING OF THE DYNAMICAL PROCESSES ASSOCIATED WITH EAST COAST COLD SEASON SEVERE CONVECTIVE EVENTS AND TO NUMERICALLY SIMULATE THESE EVENTS IN ORDER TO PROVIDE HIGHER QUALITY OBJECTIVE GUIDANCE TO THE FORECASTER. THE PHASE I OBJECTIVE IS TO SHOW THE FEASIBILITY OF USING A MESO-B SCALE DYNAMICAL MODEL TO ASSIST IN THE REAL- ...