NASA SBIR 2003 Solicitation

SMALL BUSINESS CONCERN (Firm Name, Mail Address, City/State/Zip, Phone)
STAR Cryoelectronics LLC
25-A Bisbee Court
Santa Fe ,NM 87508 - 1338
(505) 424 - 6454

PRINCIPAL INVESTIGATOR/PROJECT MANAGER (Name, E-mail, Mail Address, City/State/Zip, Phone)
Robin   Cantor
rcantor@starcryo.com
25-A Bisbee Court
Santa Fe ,NM  87508 -1338
(505) 424 - 6454
U.S. Citizen or Legal Resident: Yes

TECHNICAL ABSTRACT (LIMIT 200 WORDS)
An innovative surface micromachining technique is described for the fabrication of closely-packed arrays of transition edge sensor (TES) x-ray microcalorimeters. This technique enables individual TES microcalorimeters to be suspended on a thin membrane for thermal isolation from the bath temperature. The TES detectors are fabricated from normal metal/superconductor bilayers with a transition temperature of around 0.1 K. The proposed surface micromachining technique will simplify the fabrication of closely-packed TES microcalorimeter arrays, which are needed for numerous applications in astronomical x-ray spectroscopy.

POTENTIAL NASA COMMERCIAL APPLICATIONS (LIMIT 150 WORDS)
The primary market for TES microcalorimeters, especially for close-packed arrays of TES microcalorimeters, is instrumentation for astrophysics research. In particular, NASA needs large-format planar arrays of x-ray detectors for various applications in x-ray astronomy. The resolution of individual TES microcalorimeters for x-ray spectroscopy has improved considerably the past few years, and the successful integration of this detector technology to build closely-packed planar arrays is expected to meet this NASA need.

POTENTIAL NON-NASA COMMERCIAL APPLICATIONS (LIMIT 150 WORDS)
Private sector applications for TES microcalorimeters include cryogenic detectors for high resolution x-ray microanalysis, offering unsurpassed energy resolution and extremely sensitive qualitative and quantitative compositional information.