SBIR-STTR Award

This Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Phase I Project proposes to develop the fabrication technology for an astronomical holographic multi-spectral filter that increases the signal to noise ratio (SNR) of ground-based observations at near-infrared wavelengths by suppressing the narrow lines emitted from atmospheric OH radicals. Many astronomers have recognized that large gains in SNR can be obtained if the OH background could be suppressed. SNR is proportional to the diameter of the telescope. The potential threefold gain in SNR achieved by adding the proposed filter to the Keck 10 meter telescope would thus be equivalent to increasing its diameter to 30 meters, which is estimated to cost five hundred million dollars. In contrast, the cost of the proposed efficient multi-spectral filters is three orders of magnitude less. This project should have a direct impact on applications requiring fine multi-spectral information for accurate substance identification in remote sensing and life sciences. In remote sensing, the design and fabrication of arbitrary narrow multi-band filter profile are powerful tools for global measurements of atmospheric gases of Earth and other planets as well as remote sensing of toxic gases for Homeland Security. The spectral response of the holographic filter can be tailored to match precisely the absorption spectrum of given gases with high sensitivity. With multiple absorption or emission peaks detected simultaneously, the detection sensitivity will be increased greatly compared with traditional methods, and the required data volumes will decrease by several orders of magnitude, which makes it very attractive for remote sensing applications

This Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Phase II project will commercialize the holographic multi-spectral filter technology developed during the SBIR phase I project. The objective of this project will be the industrial fabrication of holographic multi-spectral filters by using the methods developed and demonstrated during the phase I SBIR research. There is a strong scientific and public push in astronomy to look deeper into the universe to discover and observe fascinating phenomena such as the birth of stars and exo-planets. In observations of celestial bodies from ground telescopes, the signal is faint and surrounded with unwanted optical noise from the atmosphere. The hydroxyl (OH) radicals present in the atmosphere emit light in hundreds of narrow lines that dominate the inter-line sky emission by many orders of magnitude. The multi-spectral rejection filter demonstrated in phase I discriminates the narrow spectral features of the OH emission lines from the atmosphere which increases the image sharpness by increasing the signal to noise ratio. The narrow band grating filter technology is a core platform that has a scientific and economic impact on ground-based astronomy as well as in laser diode systems. To date $3.8 Billion has been spent deploying and maintaining the Hubble Telescope. An estimated $2.2 Billion is required to see it to its final scheduled retiring date of 2010. It is believed that the introduction of the these multi-line filters combined in some cases with adaptive optics, can boost the performance of ground based telescopes so that they can approach the performance of space telescopes at a price more than 1000 times lower