SBIR Phase II: Slitless, compact, low-cost, and multichannel volume holographic spectrometers

这个小企业创新研究（SBIR）二期项目的重点是多通道全息光谱仪的商业化，该光谱仪具有大的工作带宽和精细的光谱分辨率。提出的研究是利用多路圆柱束体全息图（MCBVHs）作为色散元件，开发一种新的光谱仪平台。由于其独特的特性，MCBVH能够设计二维（2D）空间光谱输出模式，从而显着增强全息光谱仪的功能。在不牺牲光谱分辨率的情况下，可以实现工作带宽的显著改进，同时保持紧凑、轻便、低成本、可靠和校准稳健的全息光谱仪的所有优点。利用所提出的多通道光谱仪，可以一次检测到多个感兴趣的物种，即使它们的光谱分布在一个非常大的光谱带宽中。由于体全息图的设计灵活性，该技术可以设计具有定制功能的光谱仪。用不增加最终产品复杂性的全息系统打破传统光谱仪的分辨率和带宽权衡是该项目预期的主要突破。该项目的预期结果将是一个最简单但功能强大的光谱仪，可以设计为技术上执行任何给定的应用标准。该项目的更广泛的影响/商业潜力是为光谱传感器系统提供一种使能技术，为生命科学和医疗市场提供巨大的效用。对于高通量筛选，希望在包含多个样品位点的测试上同时读取多个通道。对于基于荧光的测试，需要对多个荧光团进行量化，需要更多的光谱信息。在这些应用中，仍然需要保持良好的灵敏度，以这些市场所需的低成本和尺寸进行低浓度检测。提出的基于MCBVHs的多通道光谱仪将在生物化学、医学、制药、工业质量保证、国土安全、矿物学和环境监测等领域具有广泛的应用。此外，所提出的光谱仪的紧凑轻便性质使其成为上述几个领域中对高电流需求的手持传感设备的完美选择。2005年，该技术覆盖的整个美国市场规模为26亿美元，预计到2010年将以7%的速度增长。使用具有二维空间光谱输出模式的复杂体全息图是一项重要的使能技术，它可以影响定制多用途光谱仪/传感器的设计，而不仅仅是提出的功能。

This Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Phase II project focuses on the commercialization of multichannel holographic spectrometers featured large operating bandwidth and fine spectral resolution. The proposed research is to develop a new platform for spectrometers using multiplexed cylindrical beam volume holograms (MCBVHs) as dispersive elements. Due to its unique characteristic, the MCBVH enables the design of two-dimensional (2D) spatial-spectral output patterns to significantly enhance the functionality of holographic spectrometers. A significant improvement of the operating bandwidth can be achieved without sacrificing spectral resolution while keeping all merits of a compact, lightweight, low-cost, reliable, and alignment robust holographic spectrometer. With the proposed multichannel spectrometer, several species of interest can be detected at one shot even though their spectrums are distributed in a very large spectral bandwidth. Due to the design flexibility of volume holograms, this technology enables the design of spectrometers with custom functionalities. Breaking the resolution-bandwidth trade-off of the conventional spectrometers with a holographic system that does not increase the complexity of the final product is the major breakthrough expected from this project. The expected outcome of this project will be a simplest yet highly functional spectrometer that can be designed to perform for technically any given application criteria. The broader impact/commercial potential of this project is to provide an enabling technology for spectral sensor systems which offer great utility to the life science and medical markets. For high throughput screening, it is desired to have multiple channels read simultaneously on a test containing multiple sample sites. For fluorescence based tests, multiple fluorophores need to be quantified requiring more spectral information. Maintaining good sensitivity is still required in these applications for low concentration detection at a low cost and size demanded by these markets. The proposed multichannel spectrometer based on MCBVHs will have a broad range of applications in the fields of biochemistry, medicine, pharmaceuticals, industrial quality assurance, homeland security, mineralogy, and environmental monitoring. Moreover, the compact and lightweight nature of the proposed spectrometer makes it a perfect choice for handheld sensing devices that are of high current demand in several fields as mentioned above. The entire US market volume that can be covered by this technology has been $2.6B in 2005, with a prospected 7% growth rate through 2010. The use of sophisticated volume holograms with 2D spatial-spectral output patterns is an important enabling technology that can impact the design of custom multi-purpose spectrometers/sensors beyond the proposed functionalities.