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

This Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Phase I project will develop a new platform for spectrometers using cylindrical beam volume holograms (CBVHs) as dispersive elements. Due to its unique characteristic, the CBVH enables the capability of the design of two-dimensional (2D) spatial-spectral output patterns to significantly enhance the functionality of holographic spectrometers. As an example, a multichannel spectrometer is proposed for deployment by dividing a CBVH into several rows, and each row is specifically designed and recorded to perform wavelength dispersion in a wavelength range (or channel) within the entire spectral bandwidth. Thus, a significant improvement of the spectral bandwidth can be achieved without sacrificing spectral resolution while keeping all merits of a compact, lightweight, low-cost, reliable, and alignment robust spectrometer. With the proposed multichannel spectrometer design, 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 without adding any complexity (such as more elements and complicated system arrangement) to the system. If successful a spectral sensor system that provides spatial and spectral detection offers 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 CBVH 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 proposed technology offers a practical solution for the design of custom sensors that can perform optical measurement in a large spectral bandwidth. 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 (or sensors) beyond the proposed functionalities.