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

This Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Phase II project focuses on the commercialization of multichannel holographic spectrometers featured large operating bandwidth and fine spectral resolution. The proposed research is to develop a new platform for spectrometers using multiplexed cylindrical beam volume holograms (MCBVHs) as dispersive elements. Due to its unique characteristic, the MCBVH enables the design of two-dimensional (2D) spatial-spectral output patterns to significantly enhance the functionality of holographic spectrometers. A significant improvement of the operating bandwidth can be achieved without sacrificing spectral resolution while keeping all merits of a compact, lightweight, low-cost, reliable, and alignment robust holographic spectrometer. With the proposed multichannel spectrometer, 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. Breaking the resolution-bandwidth trade-off of the conventional spectrometers with a holographic system that does not increase the complexity of the final product is the major breakthrough expected from this project. The expected outcome of this project will be a simplest yet highly functional spectrometer that can be designed to perform for technically any given application criteria. The broader impact/commercial potential of this project is to provide an enabling technology for spectral sensor systems which offer 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 MCBVHs 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 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/sensors beyond the proposed functionalities.