NASA SBIR 2007 Solicitation

SMALL BUSINESS CONCERN (Firm Name, Mail Address, City/State/Zip, Phone)
Nanohmics, Inc.
6201 East Oltorf St, Suite 400
Austin, TX 78741 - 1222
(512) 389-9990

PRINCIPAL INVESTIGATOR/PROJECT MANAGER (Name, E-mail, Mail Address, City/State/Zip, Phone)
Keith Jamison
kjamison@nanohmics.com
6201 East Oltorf St, Suite 400
Austin, TX 78741 - 1222
(512) 389-9990

Expected Technology Readiness Level (TRL) upon completion of contract: 4 to 5

TECHNICAL ABSTRACT (Limit 2000 characters, approximately 200 words)
Next generation space telescopes require advanced optical coatings to provide low loss transmission of light in a variety of spectral ranges and protect optical components from damage in a space environment. In this SBIR program Nanohmics proposes to examine uses of amorphous nitrides and oxides as a high quality, long lived coating for production of wide-acceptance angle IR anti-reflection and band-pass coatings on optical components. Amorphous nitrides are hard, flexible wide-bandgap semiconductor materials that can be used as an optical coating. Alternating layers of high index nitrides such as AlN combined with low index oxides such as SiO2 can be used to make good wide acceptance angle anti-reflective coatings for a variety of optical components.

POTENTIAL NASA COMMERCIAL APPLICATIONS (Limit 1500 characters, approximately 150 words)
The main benefit to NASA will be a robust wide-band anti-reflective or band-pass coating for optical components in space that can be applied at low substrate temperatures. This coating system can be applied to other optical components to provide radiation hard, flexible, scratch resistant coatings.

POTENTIAL NON-NASA COMMERCIAL APPLICATIONS (Limit 1500 characters, approximately 150 words)
High quality radiation and scratch resistant coating are useful in a wide variety of applications. The amorphous nitride / oxide coating system can be applied to standard optical components to produce hard scratch resistant coating for harsh environmental applications.

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

Large Antennas and Telescopes Optical Optical & Photonic Materials Radiation Shielding Materials Tribology