SBIR/STTR Phase I: Lobster-Eye X-Ray Imaging Sensor

This Small Business Innovation Research Phase I project will meet the need for advanced optical instrumentation to support scientific research in the area of X-ray radiation in the upper atmosphere. It is proposed to develop a Lobster-eye X-ray Imaging Sensor as a low-cost, all-plastic, X-ray focusing optical device for real-time, remote sensing of X-rays in auroras in the polar regions. Lobster-eye X-ray Imaging Sensor will be light enough to be carried by stratospheric balloons for use in remote observation and mapping of the precipitation of energetic electrons from solar eruptions. It is designed to collect spatial, temporal, and spectral information both by day and by night. Its low-cost, plastic, potentially disposable X-ray focusing/collimating optics, which are lobster-eye-like fiber elements with specially treated cladding to reflect X-rays, will be based on the company's advanced precision replication of plastic, single-fiber, optical components. Conditions in near space and the upper layers of the atmosphere affect telecommunications, weather monitoring, and sea transportation in the Polar Regions. Current state-of-the-art visible aurora studies are limited to the dark hemisphere, and X-ray mapping now uses single-detector sensors that are expensive, heavy, and complex. Commercial applications are in astronomy, meteorology, nuclear power stations, crystallography, and related areas. An even broader spectrum of applications exists for the LEXIS systems plastic, X-ray focusing optics, which can easily and completely replaces the capillary Kumakov optics and metal anti-scattering grids used in medical radiology, security, X-ray lithography, and many other X-ray applications.