SBIR Phase I: Ultra-Compact, Low-Cost, and Robust Volume Holographic Spectrometers

这个小型企业创新研究（SBIR）第一阶段研究项目的重点是一种新型超紧凑，低成本，坚固耐用，对线不敏感的光谱仪的可行性研究，与传统的狭缝光谱仪相比，具有更好的整体性能。所得到的光谱仪仅由体积全息图和探测器阵列组成。因此，它是超紧凑、重量轻、成本低且对输入对准不敏感的。此外，由于体积全息图具有出色的设计灵活性，该技术能够在不增加系统复杂性的情况下定制光谱仪的设计。所提出的光谱仪的性能指标（如分辨率、操作带宽和吞吐量）将与传统的基于狭缝的光谱仪的所有实现方式相当或更好。拟议的光谱仪将在生物化学，医学，制药，工业质量保证，国土安全，矿物学和环境目的等领域有广泛的应用。具体地，在光源具有漫射性质的应用中（例如，荧光光谱法）所开发的光谱仪将在现有技术中显示出最佳的灵敏度。所提出的光谱仪的超紧凑轻量化特性使其成为上述几个领域中对高电流需求的手持式传感设备的完美选择。

This Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Phase I research project is focused on the feasibility study of a new class of ultra-compact, low-cost, robust, and alignment insensitive spectrometer for diffuse source spectroscopy with better overall performance compared to conventional slit-based spectrometers using specially-designed volume holograms as dispersive elements. The resulting spectrometers are composed of only a volume hologram and a detector array. Thus, it is ultra-compact, lightweight, low-cost, and insensitive to input alignment. Moreover, due to excellent design flexibility of the volume holograms, this technology enables the custom design of the spectrometer without adding any complexity into the system. The performance measures (such as resolution, operation bandwidth, and throughput) of the proposed spectrometer will be either comparable or better than all implementations of the conventional slit-based spectrometers. The proposed spectrometer will have a broad range of applications in the fields of biochemistry, medicine, pharmaceuticals, industrial quality assurance, homeland security, mineralogy, and environmental purposes. Specifically, in the applications where the light source has a diffuse nature (e.g., fluorescence spectroscopy) the developed spectrometer will show the best sensitivity among existing technologies. The ultra-compact lightweight nature of the proposed spectrometers makes them a perfect choice of handheld sensing devices that are of high current demand in several fields mentioned above.