Proposal submission instructions

The approved FY17.A Broad Agency Announcement (BAA) topics for the Army Small Business Technology Transfer (STTR) Program are listed below. Offerors responding to this BAA must follow all general instructions provided in the Department of Defense (DoD) Program BAA. Specific Army STTR requirements that add to or deviate from the DoD Program BAA instructions are provided below with references to the appropriate section of the DoD BAA.

Army STTR Program Manager P.O. Box 12211

usarmy.rtp.aro.mail.sttr-pmo@mail.mil Research Triangle Park, NC 27709

(919) 549-4200

The Army requires your entire proposal to be submitted electronically through the DoD-wide SBIR/STTR Proposal Submission Web site (https://sbir.defensebusiness.org/). STTR Proposals consist of four volumes: Proposal Cover Sheet, Technical Volume, Cost Volume and Company Commercialization Report. Army has established a 20-page limitation for Technical Volumes submitted in response to its topics. This does not include the Proposal Cover Sheets (pages 1 and 2, added electronically by the DoD submission site), the Cost Volume, or the CCR. The Technical Volume includes, but is not limited to: table of contents, pages left blank, references and letters of support, appendices, key personnel biographical information, and all attachments. The Army requires that small businesses complete the Cost Volume form on the DoD Submission site versus submitting it within the body of the uploaded Technical Volume. It is the responsibility of submitters to ensure that the Technical Volume portion of the proposal does not exceed the 20-page limit. Any pages submitted beyond the 20-page limit will not be read or evaluated. If you experience problems uploading a proposal, call the DoD SBIR/STTR Help Desk at 1-800-348-0708 (9:00 am to 6:00 pm ET).

If the offeror proposes to employ a foreign national, refer to sections 3.5 and 5.4.c (8) in the DoD BAA for definitions and reporting requirements. Please ensure no Privacy Act information is included in this submittal.

Phase II proposals will be evaluated for overall merit based upon the criteria in section 8.0 of this BAA.  STTR Phase II proposals have four Volumes:  Proposal Cover Sheet, Technical Volume, Cost Volume and Company Commercialization Report.  The Technical Volume has a 38-page limit including: table of contents, pages intentionally left blank, technical references, letters of support, appendices, technical portions of subcontract documents (e.g., statements of work and resumes) and any attachments.  However, offerors are instructed to NOT leave blank pages, duplicate the electronically generated cover pages or put information normally associated with the Technical Volume in others sections of the proposal submission as these will count toward the 38-page limit.  ONLY the electronically generated Cover Sheets, Cost Volume and CCR are excluded from the 38-page limit.  As instructed in section 5.4.e of the DoD Program BAA, the CCR is generated by the submission website based on information provided by you through the “Company Commercialization Report” tool. Army Phase II proposals submitted containing a Technical Volume over 38 pages will be deemed NON-COMPLIANT and will not be evaluated.

TECHNOLOGY AREA(S): Sensors

OBJECTIVE: Atomic Layer Deposition (ALD) techniques have established the ability to grow conformal, defect free films over large areas, atomic layer by atomic layer. While many dielectric, semiconductor, and metal materials have been deposited with ALD, the metals with the highest electrical conductivity have not been demonstrated in a reproducible manufacturing environment. The objective of this solicitation is to demonstrate ALD deposition of a very thin (<10 nm thick), highly conductive, continuous layer of silver, copper, gold, or aluminum on a dielectric substrate.

DESCRIPTION: Atomic layer deposition (ALD) is used extensively in the semiconductor industry for the growth of high permittivity, ultra-thin dielectrics [1]. In addition to precise control of the film thickness, ALD provides conformal deposition on extremely high aspect ratio geometries [2]. This combination of features has motivated research in other nontraditional applications of ALD, in particular electromagnetic designer surfaces consisting of multilayers of different materials for specific applications [3]. For example, optical filters composed of multilayers of dielectrics with a large contrast in the index of refraction have been fabricated for bandpass filters and antireflection coatings [4]. The ability to coat arbitrary surface geometries with ultrathin films and laminates will allow for specified electromagnetic properties from the visible to microwave and has enormous potential for military and commercial applications.

While ALD has been very successful at depositing nearly one hundred different materials it has been difficult to deposit metals having the highest electrical conductivity. The significant problem is the nucleation sites on the surface in which the metal deposition process starts with small metal islands. These islands grow in size as the deposition process continues and eventually the islands coalesce at the percolation threshold and the metal film experiences a huge increase in the conductivity. Ultrathin films of silver, copper, gold, and aluminum have a percolation threshold on the order of 10 nm for traditional sputter, thermal, and electron beam deposition techniques. While post annealing dielectric films at high temperatures tends to increase the uniformity of the films, annealing has a negative result on metal films due to the surface tension of metals [5].

Metal/dielectric multilayers have been used to make what has been termed transparent metals [6, 7]. The photonic band gap approach to metal/dielectric multilayers allows for a specific passband to be opened at a desired frequency range and for all other regions of the spectrum to be blocked. This type of material has wide ranging application for laser protection, sensor protection, and microwave shielding while retaining the ability to have high transparency in a spectral region of choice. The ability to achieve extremely high transparency depends on the ability to make continuous metal films of 10 nm thickness or less. For applications in the visible, silver and gold are the preferred metals due to the low losses in that spectral range. Copper and aluminum work well for longer wavelengths. Of these four metals, gold is the most robust to environmental factors and contamination. Oxide and sulfide formation can be problematic for copper, silver, and aluminum and these issues will need separate attention in the ALD process.

There has been some success in ALD deposition of copper especially on metallic surfaces [8]. However, depositing copper on an oxide surface has nucleation problems similar to other techniques such as sputtering [9]. Recently, innovative surface chemistry in conjunction with plasma assisted ALD was demonstrated to produce gold films on borosilicate substrates [10].

PHASE I: Demonstrate the ability to grow a single continuous film of silver, copper, gold, or aluminum on a dielectric substrate with a percolation threshold of less than 10 nm thickness. The measured properties of the film should include optical transmittance, four point probe conductivity, and direct measurement of the film thickness.

PHASE II: Demonstrate the ability to grow a multilayer metal/dielectric laminate containing at least 3 metal layers that have individual thicknesses of 10 nm or less. The measured properties of the film should include optical transmittance, four point probe conductivity, and microwave transmittance, and a direct measurement of the film thickness.

PHASE III DUAL USE APPLICATIONS: Demonstrate a working ALD system that can deposit single or multilayer metal/dielectric films onto dielectric substrates including 3D printed materials for applications in filtering, shielding, conductive surfaces, and electromagnetic signature control.

REFERENCES:

1. S.M. George, "Atomic Layer Deposition: An Overview," Chem. Rev., 110, p. 111 (2010), DOI: 10.1021/cr900056b110.

2. G. Pardon, H. Gatty, G. Stemme, W. van der Wijngaart and N. Roxhed, “Al2O3 dual layer atomic layer deposition coating in high aspect ratio nanopores," Nanotechnology, 24, p. 11 (2013).

3. D. Riihel, M. Ritala, R. Matero, M. Leskel, "Introducing atomic layer epitaxy for the deposition of optical thin films," Thin Solid Films, 289, p. 250 (1996), DOI:10.1016/S0040-6090(96)08890-6.

4. A. Szeghalmi, M. Helgert, R. Brunner, F. Heyroth, U. G'sele, and M. Knez, "Atomic layer deposition of Al2O3 and TiO2 multilayers for applications as bandpass filters and antireflection coatings," Applied Optics, Vol. 48, p. 1727 (2009).

5. R. J. Warmack and S. L. Humphrey, "Observation of two surface-plasmon modes on gold particles,” Phys. Rev. B 34, 2246 (1986).

6. M.J. Bloemer and M. Scalora, "Transmissive properties of Ag/MgF2 photonic band gap," Appl. Phys. Lett. 72, 1676 (1998

7. M. Scalora, M. J. Bloemer, A. S. Pethel, J. P. Dowling,

8. L.C. Kalutarage, S.B. Clendenning, and C.H. Winter, "Low-Temperature Atomic Layer Deposition of Copper Films Using Borane Dimethylamine as the Reducing Co-reagent," Chem. Mater., 26, p. 3731 (2014), DOI: 10.1021/cm501109r.

9. Z. Li, A. Rahtu, and R.G. Gordon, "Atomic Layer Deposition of Ultrathin Copper Metal Films from a Liquid Copper(I) Amidinate Precursor," Journal of The Electrochemical Society, 153, p.787 (2006).

10. M.B.E. Griffiths, P.J. Pallister, D.J. Mandia, S.T. Barry, "Atomic layer deposition of gold metal," Chem. Mater. 44 (2016).

KEYWORDS: atomic layer deposition, ultrathin film, transparent metal, metal/dielectric multilayers, thin film laminates, nucleation, metal island film

A17A-T002

TITLE: High Efficient Flexible Perovskite Photovoltaic Modules for Powering Wireless Sensor Nodes and Recharging Batteries

TECHNOLOGY AREA(S): Sensors

OBJECTIVE: Design, fabricate, and demonstrate flexible perovskite solar modules (12"x12") providing efficiency greater than 20% under AM 1.5G standard solar spectrum with stability under up to 50ºC of temperature and up to 80% of humidity. Demonstrate the modules for direct powering of wireless sensor nodes and battery recharging operation for wearable electronics relevant to defense platforms.

DESCRIPTION: Wireless sensor nodes are becoming ubiquitous in the battlefield environment for the detection of chemical and biological agents, acoustic waves, etc. as well as for electronic health monitoring and tracking inventory of remotely deployed weapons systems. However, the finite capacity of exiting energy sources has become a major limitation in deploying them for unattended operations for a long duration. Therefore, it has led to an increasing demand for harvesting energy from the environment. However, diffused light spectrum is the only environmental energy source available for efficiently powering the nodes. Diffused light becomes a promising source in this case for powering the sensors and transferring the data to a workstation. Furthermore, field infantry electronics such as radios, GPS, night vision systems, and fire light require soldiers to carry a lot of spare batteries in addition to the body armor, weapons, food, and water. A tremendous impact on the total load can be made if a soldier uniform can be designed to harvest the freely available energy from the environment such as solar energy to continuously recharge the main battery. Although foldable solar blankets currently used in the battlefield provide the capability to charge the batteries under sunlight, they often take hours to collect enough power for charging.