NASA STTR 2016 Solicitation

PRINCIPAL INVESTIGATOR/PROJECT MANAGER (Name, E-mail, Mail Address, City/State/Zip, Phone)
Dr Jon-Paul Maria
jpm@thirdfloormaterials.com
1001 Capability Drive
Raleigh, NC 27695 - 7919
(919) 522-9310

CORPORATE/BUSINESS OFFICIAL (Name, E-mail, Mail Address, City/State/Zip, Phone)
Christopher Tyrell Shelton
ctshelto@thirdfloormaterials.com
112 Fairfax Lane
Cary, NC 27513 - 9802
(503) 740-7565

Estimated Technology Readiness Level (TRL) at beginning and end of contract:
Begin: 3
End: 4

Technology Available (TAV) Subtopics
Technologies for Planetary Compositional Analysis and Mapping is a Technology Available (TAV) subtopic that includes NASA Intellectual Property (IP). Do you plan to use the NASA IP under the award?
No

TECHNICAL ABSTRACT (Limit 2000 characters, approximately 200 words)
Using novel materials and device geometries unique to North Carolina State University (NCSU) and Third Floor Materials (3FM) this program will develop a detector technology that enables room-temperature multispectral IR imaging by exploring transduction pathways between infra red light and a measureable electric signal mediated by an epsilon-near-zero (ENZ) mode. The research activity will use a combination of physical vapor deposition, conventional microelectronic fabrication methods, and a combination of optical and electronic modeling tools to design and create a prototype IR detector element that can be tested by an external laboratory. A suite of materials characterization tools will be implemented to characterize structure and morphology, while a suite of property measurement systems will be used to quantify sensor performance in the context of currently available detector technologies.

POTENTIAL NASA COMMERCIAL APPLICATIONS (Limit 1500 characters, approximately 150 words)
We anticipate that NASA applications that include space-based observation of Earth (for the purpose of weather predictions, monitoring air pollution, climate change measurements, etc...), sub-orbital sensor networks, IR interferometry, and solar system exploration. This research is of interest to any application that benefits from an IR detector that is low mass and can be operated at ambient temperature, and can simultaneously detect multiple frequencies. Those IR sensor applications that are in flight or in orbit are of particular interest.

POTENTIAL NON-NASA COMMERCIAL APPLICATIONS (Limit 1500 characters, approximately 150 words)
Inexpensive, low energy consumption, room temperature multispectral IR sensing is of extreme interest for IR imagers for the commercial sector. First responders, police, and the security industry would be particularly interested in low low cost IR cameras. The health care industry is also interested in IR imagers for medical diagonstics.