SPECIAL NOTICE
A -- TECHNOLOGY/BUSINESS OPPORTUNITY High-Speed Imaging
- Notice Date
- 6/13/2006
- Notice Type
- Special Notice
- NAICS
- 238990
— All Other Specialty Trade Contractors
- Contracting Office
- Department of Energy, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (DOE Contractor), Industrial Partnerships & Commercialization, 7000 East Avenue L-795, Livermore, CA, 94550
- ZIP Code
- 94550
- Solicitation Number
- Reference-Number-FBO129-06
- Response Due
- 7/14/2006
- Archive Date
- 7/17/2006
- Description
- TECHNOLOGY/BUSINESS OPPORTUNITY High-Speed Imaging Opportunity: Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL), operated by the University of California under contract with the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE), is offering the opportunity to license and commercialize LLNL?s invention with applications to High-Speed Imaging. Background: Whether it be biological, chemical or physical, high-speed imaging provides a glimpse into fast and ultra-fast phenomena. High-speed imaging is filled with creative solutions to capturing ultra-short events with high spatial resolution, high dynamic range and high temporal resolution. The most common methods involve rotating mirrors or drums usually made of beryllium that become severely stressed by centripetal forces causing failures to occur. Even if the exploding mirror can be contained, beryllium dust is known to cause dangerous diseases when inhaled. Rotating mirror cameras are not only potentially dangerous, they are expensive to purchase and operate, and have severe limitations in both temporal and spatial resolution. Electronic methods used to capture multiple images suffer from low resolution and/or low number of frames due to sharing the limited space of a semiconductor chip. One major disadvantage to using the Shaw Camera or Image Conversion Camera for image capture is the requirement for one electronic gate (proxifier or microchannel plate) and one detector array per frame. The cost is further increased by the high voltage pulser required for each frame. Multiplexed holography has also been employed for the capture of a series of brief exposures. However, holography requires a special laser which has a single wavelength (typically a cavity seeded single longitudinal mode) and a single transverse mode (TEM00). What is needed is a better method and apparatus to make high-speed imaging systems more accessible to scientists, engineers and the general public through a system that is lower in cost, safer to operate, covers a longer event window (more frames), and has higher dynamic range and higher spatial and temporal resolution. A system that does not require a complex and expensive laser to operate as well as a system that can use light with bandwidth (a range of wavelengths) to avoid graininess (caused by speckle); and could record and play back the images in color would be desired advancements. Description: LLNL?s high-speed imaging invention refers to a method by which you can store a tremendous amount of information in an extremely short period of time. The information is input into the device as a time varying array of pixels (each of which can record red, green and blue intensity values). Each array can be composed of millions of pixels. Advantages: In addition to applications for storage of large bursts of data, this technology could be used to capture a series of images (perhaps a thousand) in a very short time (perhaps one hundred microseconds) wherein each frame is a snapshot of a high-speed event (exposure of 100 nanoseconds or less). The period between the acquisition of each image can be as short as 100 nanoseconds which corresponds to a ten million frame per second rate of capture. Key features of this technology include: Variable frame rate above and below 10Mfps; continuous access system; ability to optically gate a stream of images with a light source and/or shutters; system can capture 900 or more frames in sequence; each image frame can have over 3 million pixels; high dynamic range; white light, full color image recording is possible, with or without lasers; several views are possible and can be captured in parallel (for stereo pairs) or in series (to increase the total number of frames into the thousands); and the system is portable. Potential Applications: High-speed imaging has many industrial applications including the study of fast moving objects where motion blur prevents one from acquiring detailed images. Explosives, ballistics, chemical reactions and the ?instant replay? in sports use high-speed imaging to determine what is happening by recording and replaying the action back in slow motion. There are numerous applications in diagnosing fast moving machinery or assembly line products, physics modeling of shock waves, determining fracture dynamics, understanding interactions between lasers and materials, recording the motion and performance of space re-entry vehicles, documenting automobile crash test results, even improving the execution of a golf swing. Such a capability would be useful for explosive event tests, shockwave modeling, inferring equation of state values from resultant velocimetry data, fracture dynamics, shaped charge jet formation, and ballistics. Development Status: LLNL is in the process of filing a patent application for this technology. While some technical risk remains, LLNL is moving forward with proof-of-principle experiments. LLNL is seeking industry partners with a demonstrated ability to bring such inventions to the market. Moving critical technology beyond the Laboratory to the commercial world helps our licensees gain a competitive edge in the marketplace. All licensing activities are conducted under policies relating to the strict nondisclosure of company proprietary information. Please visit the IPAC website at http://www.llnl.gov/IPandC/workwithus/partneringprocess.php for more information on working with LLNL and the industrial partnering and technology transfer process. Note: THIS IS NOT A PROCUREMENT. Companies interested in commercializing LLNL's High-Speed Imaging technology should provide a written statement of interest, which includes the following: 1. Company Name and address. 2. The name, address, and telephone number of a point of contact. 3. A description of corporate expertise and facilities relevant to commercializing this technology. Written responses should be directed to: Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory Industrial Partnerships and Commercialization P.O. Box 808, L-795 Livermore, CA 94551-0808 Attention: FBO 129-06 Please provide your written statement within thirty (30) days from the date this announcement is published to ensure consideration of your interest in LLNL's High-Speed Imaging technology.
- Record
- SN01068378-W 20060615/060613220311 (fbodaily.com)
- Source
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