SBIR Phase II: Thermal Drawing of High-Performance Bandpass Filters for High-Volume Applications

The broader impact of this Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Phase II project is to ultimately reduce the cost of manufacturing of high-performance optical filters, a key component in many emerging technologies. The cost can be reduced by over 10x at high volumes. This will enable widespread use of many devices, such as medical diagnostic tools, sensors for robotic systems, and other applications. The proposed project eliminates the capital-intensive vacuum coating process from high-performance optical filter production and replaces it with the more scalable process of thermal drawing (resembling optical fiber drawing) for the filters supported by the thermal drawing process. To this end, the proposed project will: design and build precision equipment; improve the precision of a prototype process; and demonstrate industry-standard filter quality. The thermo-fluidic aspects of the process will be optimized for production quality at relevant sizes. This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.