NASA SBIR 2009 Solicitation

SMALL BUSINESS CONCERN (Firm Name, Mail Address, City/State/Zip, Phone)
Discovery Semiconductors, Inc.
119 Silvia Street
Ewing, NJ 08628 - 3200
(609) 434-1311

PRINCIPAL INVESTIGATOR/PROJECT MANAGER (Name, E-mail, Mail Address, City/State/Zip, Phone)
Abhay M Joshi
abhay@chipsat.com
119 Silvia Street
Ewing, NJ 08628 - 3200
(609) 434-1311 Extension :213

Estimated Technology Readiness Level (TRL) at beginning and end of contract:
Begin: 4
End: 5

TECHNICAL ABSTRACT (Limit 2000 characters, approximately 200 words)
Broadband focal plane arrays, operating in UV-to-SWIR wavelength range, are required for atmospheric monitoring of greenhouse gases. Currently, separate image sensors are used for different spectral sub-bands: GaN for UV, Si for visible, and InGaAs for SWIR, requiring expensive component-level integration for hyper-spectral imaging. Also, the size of the InGaAs focal plane arrays is currently limited by the InP substrate area.

We propose to develop a 640 x 512 UV-to-SWIR focal plane array sensor using GaAs substrate having following photodiode performance: (1) Cut-on Wavelength = 0.25 micron; (2) Cut-off Wavelength = 2.5 micron; (3) RoA > 35 Ohm-cm^2 at 300K; and (4) Quantum Eficiency > 30% in UV (0.25 to 0.4 micron), > 80% in Visible (0.4 to 0.9 micron), and > 70% in IR (0.9 to 2.5 micron) subbands.

Based on P.I.'s experience on SCIAMACHY, this project will enable one image sensor for 8 spectroscopic channels currently orbiting on European Space Agency's ENVISAT.

POTENTIAL NASA COMMERCIAL APPLICATIONS (Limit 1500 characters, approximately 150 words)
Potential NASA applications for large-format UV-to-SWIR focal plane array sensors include:
1. Space-based atmospheric monitoring of ozone and greenhouse gases
2. Weather observation
3. Hyper-spectral sensors for planetary missions

POTENTIAL NON-NASA COMMERCIAL APPLICATIONS (Limit 1500 characters, approximately 150 words)
Potential Non-NASA commercial applications for large-format UV-to-SWIR focal plane array sensors include:
1. Pollution monitoring for automobiles, refineries, etc.
2. Bio-medical imaging and spectroscopy
3. Jet engine development
4. Industrial process control in pharmaceutical, food-processing, and petrochemical industries
5. Crop monitoring
6. Mineral detection

TECHNOLOGY TAXONOMY MAPPING (NASA's technology taxonomy has been developed by the SBIR-STTR program to disseminate awareness of proposed and awarded R/R&D in the agency. It is a listing of over 100 technologies, sorted into broad categories, of interest to NASA.)

Optical Optical & Photonic Materials