December 21, 2011 – Marketwire — Boston Micromachines Corporation (BMC), MEMS-based deformable mirror (DM) optical products supplier, was awarded a Phase 1 contract for $125,000 by NASA’s Small Business Innovation Research Program (SBIR) to support exoplanet imaging research.
One of NASA’s core objectives is to explore earth-like planets outside of our solar system. Space telescope optics cannot be shaped to the precision required for imaging of small earth-sized planets, and therefore DMs must be used to correct for the residual aberrations resulting from initial fabrication and slowly changing mechanical deformations of the deployed primary mirror.
This grant will enable Boston Micromachines to develop processes and manufacturing innovations that will improve the ability of DMs to correct for these residual aberrations resulting in reduced glare in imaging systems used in the search for earth-sized planets.
In this Phase 1 project, BMC will develop and demonstrate an innovative microfabrication process to substantially improve the surface quality achievable in high-resolution continuous-membrane MEMS DMs. The project goals include at least twofold improvement in small-scale surface flatness in comparison to the current state-of-the-art, and corresponding reductions in diffraction.
Also read: NASA grants BMC Phase II space imaging contract and NASA grant for MEMS deformable mirror fab awarded to Boston Micromachines
"The improvements in DM fabrication technology proposed in this project will help astronomers achieve their goal of imaging earth-like planets in other solar systems," said Paul Bierden, president and co-founder of Boston Micromachines. "In addition, this research has potential impact on commercial applications such as optical communications, surveillance, pulse shaping, and biological imaging."
This Phase 1 award is part of NASA’s Small Business Innovation Research programs. The highly competitive programs afford small businesses the chance to propose unique ideas that meet specific research and development needs of the government. The criteria used to choose these winning proposals include technical merit and feasibility, experience, qualifications, effectiveness of the work plan and commercial potential.
Boston Micromachines Corporation (BMC) provides advanced microelectromechanical systems (MEMS)-based mirror products and has expertise in the design of adaptive optics systems. For more information on BMC, please visit www.bostonmicromachines.com.