SBIR-STTR Award

Boston Applied Technologies, Inc (BATi), together with Kent State University (KSU), proposes to develop a high sensitivity infrared (IR) imaging sensor without cooling, which covers a broad band from near infrared (NIR) to mid-infrared (mid-IR). It is based on a specific transparent functional material developed at BATi that has excellent pyroelectric effect, over strong absorption at NIR, mid-IR and long-wave infrared (LWIR) wavebands, perfect transmittance in visible wavelength. With this material, the intensity variation of an incident NIR, Mid-IR or/and LWIR radiation from a warm object can be transferred into intensity variation of a visible beam by a smart use of liquid crystal, which can be detected by a commercial CCD or CMOS camera. Of the most important, the collaboration with Dr. Quan Li's group at The Glenn H. Brown Liquid Crystal Institute at KSU, which is renowned for their pioneer research and development on liquid crystal, will further leverage and ensure the success of the proposed program. Compared to existing thermal imaging techniques, this invention will generate an uncooled IR imaging sensor with unprecedented low costs, high resolution, high sensitivity, low mass, and low power consumption, which is very important to NASA's planetary exploration projects and other applications.

Potential NASA Commercial Applications:
(Limit 1500 characters, approximately 150 words) The development effort of this program will directly result in a novel uncooled IR imaging sensor with unprecedented low costs, higher resolution, high sensitivity, low mass, and low power consumption to meet NASA's planetary exploration projects' requirements. Especially, because of its low mass, low power consumption, it also has wide applications at NASA for space research in Earth science, heliophysics science, astrophysics, and remote sensing.

Potential NON-NASA Commercial Applications:
(Limit 1500 characters, approximately 150 words) The proposed IR imaging sensor features unprecedented low costs, high resolution, high sensitivity, low mass, and low power consumption. Therefore, this IR imaging sensors could be used in various military and commercial applications similar to persistent surveillance including law enforcement, building, installation, airport and seaport security, building inspection, and nighttime emergency response situations. The thermal imaging market value is billion-dollar now and is expected to be fast-growing. Especially, because of its relatively low cost, the proposed IR imaging sensor may also find themselves in many industrial sectors.

Technology Taxonomy Mapping:
(NASA's technology taxonomy has been developed by the SBIR-STTR program to disseminate awareness of proposed and awarded R/R&D in the agency. It is a listing of over 100 technologies, sorted into broad categories, of interest to NASA.) Detectors (see also Sensors) Image Capture (Stills/Motion) Infrared Thermal Thermal Imaging (see also Testing & Evaluation) Visible