SBIR-STTR Award

This innovation is the design of a monochromatic x-ray source to be used in a mission compatible XPS spectrometer. Existing x-ray sources for XPS are large, require high power and a will have difficulty meeting the vibration specifications for a mission type instrument. The small x-ray sources developed for medical applications are exciting but are designed for high energy x-rays and require refractory anodes. This program will develop a new design suitable for mission applications. It will focus on small sources similar to the medical devices that will use low power. The monochromator will be designed for low mass and use a feedback based stabilization to keep it aligned independent of temperature and vibrations associated with missions launch. The feedback system will use x-ray detectors in a plane near the sample to since the x-ray beam direction and an interment angular vibration to make sure the monochromator is on the optimum angle for diffraction. After a suitable design is implemented with thermal electron sources, a nanotube excitation sources will be considered.

The objective in this project is the development of a monochromatic x-ray source for a small x-ray Photoelectron Spectrometer (XPS) suitable for NASA missions. This instrument will allow in situ elemental and chemical state measurements in off-earth NASA missions. The need for these measurements is for understanding resource availability, toxicity, and chemical issues like oxidants on Mars. The small XPS developed in a previous SBIR, NNC04CA20C, has a mass of 15 Kg and will reduce to 7 kg as refined for flight. It will operate with about 10 watts. This tool needs a monochromatic x-ray source for the capability to understand the chemistries expected on NASA missions as called out in Future Space Science Enterprise (SSE) missions. In Phase I for this proposal we designed a combination of sources that will accomplish this need. It uses both a monochromatic and a non-monochromatic x-ray source to provide the quality data needed at a data rate suitable for potential missions. It uses low power, has a small mass and has some redundancy to reduce risk. Non-NASA applications will be process monitoring for semiconductor, polymer films and bioprocesses manufacturing. This application will be made available by the small size