LUMILANT, INC. — Department of Defense SBIR Phase II: Current bolometers are broadband detectors and tend to absorb broad IR spectrum for therma

LUMILANT, INC. — SBIR Phase II award from Department of Defense.

Amount
$500,000
Agency
Department of Defense · Office for Chemical and Biological Defense
Program / Phase
SBIR · Phase II
Solicitation
2011.1
NAICS
Place of performance
DE
Period
2013-04-30 → 2014-04-29

Description

Current bolometers are broadband detectors and tend to absorb broad IR spectrum for thermal imaging. A key issue with these systems is the lack of sensitivity of the sensors in target detection due to blackbody radiation limit. As a result, one of the many important applications such as low concentration chemical detection cannot be performed. A solution to this problem is to employ cryogenic systems where the sensors are cooled either thermoelectrically or with liquid nitrogen which can lead to higher sensitivity in detection. However, one major drawback of these systems is the size, weight and power (SWaP) issue as they tend to be rather bulky and cumbersome which have largely challenged their use in UAV"s.