Boulder, CO--The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) announced a total of more than $22 million in funding for nine research projects targeting innovative manufacturing technologies in fields ranging from biopharmaceuticals and electronics to organic photovoltaics and energy storage. Three of the projects are directly related to photonics.
Funded by NIST's Technology Innovation Program (TIP), the awards will be matched by other funding sources and are expected to result in an estimated $46 million in new advanced manufacturing research over the next three years.
TIP is a merit-based, competitive program that provides cost-shared funding for research projects by single small- or medium-sized businesses or by joint ventures that can include higher education institutions, nonprofit research organizations and national laboratories. The nine projects announced today were selected from 110 proposals in the "Manufacturing and Biomanufacturing: Materials Advances and Critical Processes" competition announced last April.
The three photonics-related projects funded by TIP:
Low-Cost, Scalable Manufacturing of Surface-Engineered Super-Hard Substrates for Next-Generation Electronic and Photonic Devices
Sinmat Inc. (Gainesville, FL.)
--Project length: 3 years
--Requested TIP funding: $2.4 M
--Project total (est.): $4.8 M
--Project Goal: To develop the means to fabricate high-quality, super-hard substrates in a rapid, reliable, scalable and cost-effective manner.
Synthesis of High-Efficiency Organic Photovoltaics for Scalable, Cost-Effective Manufacturing
Polyera Corporation (Skokie, IL)
--Project length: 2 years
--Requested TIP funding: $2 M
--Project total (est.): $5 M
--Project Goal: To develop novel processes for manufacturing organic photovoltaic materials to enable large-scale manufacturing of high-performance, flexible solar-energy modules.
Process Innovation for High Technology Manufacturing of Flexible Liquid Crystal Displays
Kent Displays, Inc. (Kent, OH)
--Project length: 3 years
--Requested TIP funding: $3 M
--Project total (est.): $6 M
--Project Goal: To create new tools for modifying the chemical structure of proteins that are produced by current biomanufacturing technologies to improve the therapeutic action of the manufactured protein.
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