SBIR Phase II: Efficient Multi-Spectral Holographic Filters

这个小企业创新研究（SBIR）第二阶段项目将商业化SBIR第一阶段项目期间开发的全息多光谱滤波器技术。本项目的目标是利用第一阶段SBIR研究期间开发和演示的方法工业制造全息多光谱滤光片。天文学有强大的科学和公众推动力，以更深入地观察宇宙，发现和观察迷人的现象，如恒星和系外行星的诞生。在地面望远镜对天体的观测中，信号很微弱，并且被来自大气层的不必要的光学噪声所包围。存在于大气中的羟基（OH）自由基以数百条窄线发射光，这些窄线以许多数量级主导线间天空发射。在第一阶段中展示的多光谱抑制滤波器区分来自大气的OH发射线的窄光谱特征，这通过增加信噪比来增加图像清晰度。窄带光栅滤波器技术是一个核心平台，对地基天文学以及激光二极管系统具有科学和经济影响。到目前为止，已经花费了38亿美元来部署和维护哈勃望远镜。估计需要22亿美元才能看到它在2010年的最后预定退役日期。 据信，这些多线滤波器的引入在某些情况下与自适应光学相结合，可以提高地面望远镜的性能，使它们可以以低于1000倍的价格接近太空望远镜的性能。

This Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Phase II project will commercialize the holographic multi-spectral filter technology developed during the SBIR phase I project. The objective of this project will be the industrial fabrication of holographic multi-spectral filters by using the methods developed and demonstrated during the phase I SBIR research. There is a strong scientific and public push in astronomy to look deeper into the universe to discover and observe fascinating phenomena such as the birth of stars and exo-planets. In observations of celestial bodies from ground telescopes, the signal is faint and surrounded with unwanted optical noise from the atmosphere. The hydroxyl (OH) radicals present in the atmosphere emit light in hundreds of narrow lines that dominate the inter-line sky emission by many orders of magnitude. The multi-spectral rejection filter demonstrated in phase I discriminates the narrow spectral features of the OH emission lines from the atmosphere which increases the image sharpness by increasing the signal to noise ratio. The narrow band grating filter technology is a core platform that has a scientific and economic impact on ground-based astronomy as well as in laser diode systems. To date $3.8 Billion has been spent deploying and maintaining the Hubble Telescope. An estimated $2.2 Billion is required to see it to its final scheduled retiring date of 2010. It is believed that the introduction of the these multi-line filters combined in some cases with adaptive optics, can boost the performance of ground based telescopes so that they can approach the performance of space telescopes at a price more than 1000 times lower.