SOURCES SOUGHT
A -- Upgrade Services for the Third-generation Synchrotron Ultraviolet Radiation Facility (SURF III)
- Notice Date
- 8/28/2007
- Notice Type
- Sources Sought
- NAICS
- 541710
— Research and Development in the Physical, Engineering, and Life Sciences
- Contracting Office
- Department of Commerce, National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), Acquisition Management Division, 100 Bureau Drive, Building 301, Room B129, Mail Stop 1640, Gaithersburg, MD, 20899-1640, UNITED STATES
- ZIP Code
- 00000
- Solicitation Number
- Reference-Number-NB841020-7-04632mac
- Response Due
- 9/5/2007
- Archive Date
- 9/20/2007
- Description
- This is a request for information/sources sought notice(RFI) to assist the National Institute of Standards and Technology(NIST) for the purpose of conducting Market Research only. At this time, no solicitation is currently available, a procurement is not planned and unsolicited proposals in responses to this RFI will not be accepted. The NIST, Gaithersburg, Maryland is conducting market research to determine the extent to which businesses/organizations are capable of providing the herein described synchrotron ultraviolet radiation facility services. The NAICS code for which a contractor may respond to this RFI is 541710 Research and Development in the Physical, Engineering, and Life Sciences. The third-generation Synchrotron Ultraviolet Radiation Facility (SURF III) located at National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) in Gaithersburg, MD requires services to upgrade the existing facility in order to better support the needs of its industrial user base. In recent years, much attention has been paid to the advantages of low energy synchrotrons for applications such as next-generation Extreme-Ultra-Violet (EUV) lithographic mirror testing, EUV mirror damage studies, calibration of photo-diodes for industrial purposes, and the calibration and testing of NASA satellites. Because world-wide industrial demand for stable, calibrated, synchrotron light sources has been growing at an unprecedented pace, many new facilities are currently being developed around the world to address the surge in industrial demand. In order to remain at the forefront of this very important area of active research, and to be able to compete with growing number of international facilities, the NIST SURF III facility must be upgraded. The proposed synchrotron upgrades will improve NIST?s ability to serve the needs of the EUV industrial community, as well as benefiting other important research activities at SURF III such as UV Fourier transform spectroscopy, absolute cryogenic radiometry, and standard light source development. The capabilities requested of potential sources in this RFI are as follows: 1)The cavity-tune control system for the high-power, 114 megahertz (MHz) radio frequency (rf) cavity that supplies the energy electrons lose due to synchrotron radiation, needs to be upgraded. At present the cavity is tuned by a metallic plunger which is controlled by a reversible motor. The phase of the reflected power from the cavity is monitored and used to control circuitry that drives the motor. However, under a variety of beam conditions there is significant chatter in the motor drive due to electron-beam instabilities that change the coupling to the rf cavity. NIST is interested in information/sources regarding designing a new cavity-tune system that remains chatter-free even under unstable beam conditions. The new system should include a stepper motor as the principle drive to increase the flexibility of the system. 2)Demand for using the Synchroton requires overnight use by researchers Unfortunately, the control system and the primary power systems (i.e., 250 kW magnet supply, 30 kilowatt (kW) rf transmitter, etc.) were not designed to be impervious to transients in the primary alternate current (AC) power grid (three-phase 480 volts alternate current (VAC), three-phase 208 VAC, and single-phase 120 VAC), and transients as short as 50 milliseconds (ms) in duration cause complete beam loss. Consequently, NIST is interested in information/sources that entail a detailed examination of the control system, so that loss of beam when transients are present on the AC grid, are minimized through control-system modifications. 4)NIST is interested in information/sources for upgrading the Synchrotron VME-based control system to one that interfaces to the actual machine through more autonomous tributary controls. 5)An infrared microscopy beam line at the SURF III facility has low beam currents and instabilities in the electron beam seriously impacted the usefulness of the setup. Since infrared microscopy is a very useful technique for forensic analysis, NIST would like to explore the possibility of improving electron beam currents and stability to the point where the technique becomes viable. To that end, NIST is interested in information/sources for investigating new techniques to improve electron beam currents such as adiabatic rf electron capture during injection. 6)The distributed ion pumps in the storage ring vacuum chamber at the SUF III facility exhibit instabilities that sometimes result in partial or complete beam loss. Since these ion pumps are integral to the welded vacuum can, they cannot be easily repaired or replaced. If replacement were necessary, the NIST facility would have to shut down for at least a year to perform these repairs. Obviously, this would have a serious, negative impact on industrial users who rely on the SURF III facility for calibration purposes as well as next-generation lithographic mirror testing. Therefore, NIST is interested in information/sources to determine the potential causes of the ion-pump instabilities and determine the operational parameters for the distributed pumping system that minimize these instabilities. 7)Significant levels of radiation are a safety concern at the SURF III facility. Minimizing safety hazards is a high priority for NIST personnel. To end, NIST is interested in information/sources for a network of detectors for gamma rays and neutrons. The detectors must be able to operate continuously. The information provided by the remote radiation detectors shall be used to control audible alarms to warn personnel present in the SURF III facility of a radiation danger. 8)In particular, the ramp rate of the high-current, high-voltage supply (1250 Amps at 200 volts direct current [VDC]) is not a dynamically adjustable quantity during the electron-injection phase. Consequently, , and as such it is not possible to optimize the Synchrotron system. In the initial phase of the injection, the background gas collisional cross section for scattering electrons out of orbit is high, and this would seem to indicate that it is best to initially ramp the electron energy quickly. However, at this stage of injection the index is highly variable, because of Eddy-currents in the magnet as the field changes (a consequence of the weak-focusing condition), and this means that fast changes in electron energy cause electron loss. NIST is interested in information/sources for optimizing the Synchrotron system. 9)Beam injection into the primary storage ring at the SURF III facility is accomplished using two kicker magnets after the electrons are accelerated to 10 MeV by a race-track Microtron and focused into the ring using a combination of deflection/focusing optics. The first kicker magnet (inflector) is a single-turn coil through which 10,000 amp pulse of current passes. Ideally, the current-pulse duration would be reduced to the 20 microsecond (?s) level because it presents a destructive perturbation to the electrons once they are captured into the ring. Unfortunately, the present system suffers from after pulsing if the pulse duration is less than 100 ?s. NIST is interested in information/sources for ascertaining the reason for this after-pulsing, and technical approach for solving this problem. 10)The energy radiated from SURF III via synchrotron radiation exceeds the original design targets by over two orders of magnitude, and this has already resulted in two vacuum breeches due to thermally-induced window damage. To complicate matters there are internal structures (plates, kicker magnets, etc.) weakly coupled to the ambient thermal reservoir that are highly susceptible to thermal damage. NIST is interested in information/sources on how to better identify which structures are at risk from thermal damage as well as technical approach to reduce thermal damage. 11)Optimization of the current injected into the SURF III storage ring at 10 MeV before ramping the energy is a very challenging problem, because the characteristic wavelength of synchrotron emission is greater than 20 microns (?m) at 10 MeV. Therefore, no visible light is available to be used as a measure of the stored current. At present, the SURF III storage ring monitors the beam current using a section of S-band waveguide. As the electron bunches pass through this waveguide an image charge of opposite sign is induced in the waveguide. The charge passes through a 50 Ohm resistor on its way to the waveguide, inducing a voltage that can be used as a measure of the current in the ring. Unfortunately, the electron bunch is longer than the waveguide, and therefore some electrons in the bunch are leaving as others enter, making the induced voltage a poor measure of the stored current since the induced charge on the monitor waveguide doesn?t change. To make matters worse, the bunch length fluctuates in time as the injection parameters are changed. NIST is interested in information/sources to determine the stored charge in the ring at 10 MeV that does not involve using the previously mentioned S-band waveguide. The new method should not be sensitive to electron-bunch length, or electron-bunch shape, and will produce a signal that can be used to optimize the stored current before ramping the energy, thereby leading to higher operational currents. The time constant for any control electronics must be less than 50 ms so that injection parameters can be optimized in real time during the electron-beam injection phase. 12)The electron beam current stored in the SURF III synchrotron needs to be measured with great precision in order to accurately determine the synchrotron radiation intensity at any given wavelength. Calibration of this stored current is done at the single electron level, and monitoring is performed with hundreds of milliamperes stored in the ring. Therefore the detector must have a large dynamic range (encompassing 11 orders of magnitude in detection sensitivity) with a high signal-to-noise ratio. NIST is interested in information/sources for state-of-the-art, low noise electronics to determine which components should be used in the construction of such a detector. Any organization responding to this RFI notice shall have the capabilities to provide the services of the above listed NAICS code. NIST is especially interested in receiving input from small businesses who can meet the above described capabilities. HOW TO RESPOND TO THE SOURCES SOUGHT NOTICE- Potential sources that possess capabilities to perform the aforementioned shop services are encouraged to respond to this notice and provide the following information: 1) Detailed narrative describing the company/organization?s current capabilities that are directly relevant to the aforementioned work; 2) Description of each similar project completed by your company/organization as a prime Contractor or as a significant Subcontractor within the past three (3) years, including as much of the following information as possible: (a) dollar amount of the contract; (b) brief description of the technical requirements of the project? (c) contract type used on the project (e.g., firm-fixed price, labor-hour, time-and-materials, cost plus-fixed fee, cost-plus-award-fee and cost plus-incentives-fee, etc); (d) indication of how long the project took to complete from start to finish; and (e) name, address, point of contact and phone number of the customer organization for which the work was done. 3) Current socio-economic status of your company as it relates to North American Industrial Classification System (NAICS) codes listed above. 4) Indication of whether your company currently has an active registration in the Central Contractor?s Registration at www.ccr.gov. Your submission must be received in this office by 2:00 PM EST on Wednesday September 5, 2007 by email at the following email address Email: Mario.Checchia@nist.gov . The capability statements shall be not more than twenty (20) pages on 8.5? x 11? paper, with 1? margins and a 12 point, commonly used font such as, Courier New or Times Roman in length. The Government reserves the right to contact any of the submitters to attain further market research. This contact may be in the form of direct Government/Submitter meeting(s). THIS REQUEST FOR INFORMATION/SOURCES SOUGHT ANNOUNCEMENT IS NOT A REQUEST FOR PROPOPOSALS AND THE GOVERNMENT IS NOT COMMITTED TO AWARD A CONTRACT PURSUANT TO THIS ANNOUNCEMENT. RESPONSES SHALL NOT INCLUDE COST OR PRICING INFORMATION. PLEASE DIRECT ANY QUESTIONS REGARDING THIS RFI/ SOURCES SOUGHT NOTICE BY EMAIL TO mario.checchia@nist.gov BY CLOSE OF BUSINESS August 30, 2007.
- Record
- SN01387211-W 20070830/070828220334 (fbodaily.com)
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