SBIR Phase II: Thermal Drawing of High-Performance Bandpass Filters for High-Volume Applications

这个小型企业创新研究（SBIR）第二阶段项目的更广泛影响是最终降低高性能滤光片的制造成本，这是许多新兴技术的关键组成部分。 在大批量生产时，成本可降低10倍以上。这将使许多设备的广泛使用成为可能，例如医疗诊断工具、机器人系统传感器和其他应用。拟议项目消除了高性能滤光片生产中的资本密集型真空镀膜工艺，并将其替换为更可扩展的热拉伸工艺（类似于光纤拉伸），用于热拉伸工艺支持的滤光片。为此，拟议项目将：设计和建造精密设备;提高原型工艺的精度;并展示行业标准的过滤器质量。该工艺的热流体方面将针对相关尺寸的生产质量进行优化。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

The broader impact of this Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Phase II project is to ultimately reduce the cost of manufacturing of high-performance optical filters, a key component in many emerging technologies. The cost can be reduced by over 10x at high volumes. This will enable widespread use of many devices, such as medical diagnostic tools, sensors for robotic systems, and other applications. The proposed project eliminates the capital-intensive vacuum coating process from high-performance optical filter production and replaces it with the more scalable process of thermal drawing (resembling optical fiber drawing) for the filters supported by the thermal drawing process. To this end, the proposed project will: design and build precision equipment; improve the precision of a prototype process; and demonstrate industry-standard filter quality. The thermo-fluidic aspects of the process will be optimized for production quality at relevant sizes.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.