NASA SBIR 2005 Solicitation

SMALL BUSINESS CONCERN (Firm Name, Mail Address, City/State/Zip, Phone)
STAR Cryoelectronics LLC
25-A Bisbee Court
Santa Fe ,NM 87508 - 1412
(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 -1412
(505) 424 - 6454

TECHNICAL ABSTRACT (LIMIT 200 WORDS)
Future missions to study astrophysical sources at millimeter and submillimeter wavelengths require focal planes of 1000's of detectors that must operate at the background limit from cooled telescopes in space, couple efficiently to optical systems spanning wavelengths from 1 cm to 0.1 mm, allow precise measurements of polarization, and interface with a suitable readout technology. These properties are critical, for example, for missions to decode completely the temperature and polarization of the 2.7 K cosmic microwave background radiation, such as the Einstein Inflation Probe (EIP, or CMBPol). Achieving these goals will require a revolution in detector technology, and scalable approaches that are compatible with planar microlithographic fabrication are therefore essential. The most promising schemes include antenna-coupled bolometers cooled to ~100 mK. We propose to develop the superconducting transition-edge hot-electron microbolometer (THM), which overcomes many of the limitations of current bolometer technology. Using superconducting transmission-line circuitry for focal-plane processing of the RF signal, we propose to integrate these detectors into a polarimeter on a single, monolithic circuit. The innovation directly addresses Topic 4 "Exploration of the Universe Beyond Our Solar System," subtopic S4.01 "Infrared and Sub-mm Sensors and Detectors."

POTENTIAL NASA COMMERCIAL APPLICATIONS (LIMIT 150 WORDS)
NASA has placed CMBPol on its roadmap to detect the imprint of the gravitational waves from inflation on the CMB polarization. This task, however, is very challenging. Sensitivity improvements of at least a factor of 10 over the Planck mission are required. The joint NASA, NSF, and DOE Task Force on CMB Research has outlined a plan for carrying out this ambitious mission, and the development of detectors is a key component of that plan. The detectors proposed here can meet the requirements for the CMBPol mission.

POTENTIAL NON-NASA COMMERCIAL APPLICATIONS (LIMIT 150 WORDS)
Non-NASA commercial applications include industrial IR cameras for process monitoring, structural inspection, and other real-time thermal applications, as well as homeland security applications such as quantum cryptography.

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.

TECHNOLOGY TAXONOMY MAPPING

Instrumentation Microwave/Submillimeter