Office of Nuclear Physics
Small Business Innovation Research / Small Business Technology Transfer

Raytum Laser organic glass scintillator diamond (carbon) scattering target
This 200 W laser excites helium-3 that is then used by researchers at the Thomas Jefferson National Accelerator Facility (Jefferson Lab) in Newport News, VA. Image credit: Dr. Wei Lu – Raytum Photonics This organic glass scintillator can distinguish between gamma rays and neutrons, making it more versatile than plastic scintillators commonly used by nuclear scientists. Image courtesy of Dr. Urmila Shirwadkar, Radiation Monitoring Devices This diamond (carbon) scattering target can handle higher beam currents, and potentially measure the electron beam polarization with double the precision, when compared to existing methods using a gold target. Image credit, Dr. Eric Montgomery Euclid Techlabs

Click here to view the listing of past NP SBIR/STTR Exchange Meetings

What are SBIR and STTR?

Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) and Small Business Technology Transfer (STTR) are U.S. Government programs in which federal agencies with large research and development budgets set aside a fraction of their extramural R&D funding for competition exclusively among U.S. small businesses. Small businesses that win awards in these programs keep the rights to any technology developed and are encouraged to commercialize the technology.

Small businesses are encouraged to contact, and if appropriate, collaborate with NP-funded national user facilities, laboratories and universities to better understand the mission of the NP program and its community, and to best optimize resources aimed at anticipated high priority technical challenges. These needs and challenges are reflected in the NP topics and subtopics published yearly around the third week of July, with the FOA published in mid-August.  The Phase I application process starts with submission of letters of intent (LOI) that are due in late August, followed by submission of proposals due in mid-October.

For more general information on DOE SBIR/STTR visit the Office of Science SBIR/STTR web site at https://science.osti.gov/sbir.

For the definition of 'small business', visit 'https://science.osti.gov/sbir/FAQs.

Nuclear Physics SBIR/STTR Topics

NP Program Managers annually revise the subtopics for each SBIR/STTR topic based on the latest technical needs within their portfolios that require research, development and innovation. This input includes revisions of existing items, addition of new items, and deletion of items no longer needed. The topics are then distributed to the community, who is encouraged to suggest additions to the subtopics related to their future experiments or facilities, consistent with the SBIR/STTR R&D spirit and its grant regulations.
The SBIR/STTR Funding Opportunity Announcement for NP currently has 4 topics;

  1. Nuclear Physics Software and Data Management
  2. Nuclear Physics Electronics Design and Fabrication
  3. Nuclear Physics Accelerator Technology
  4. Nuclear Physics Instrumentation, Detection Systems and Techniques

The subtopics within each topic vary from year to year, the current and last year’s subtopics can be found here:

NP SBIR/STTR Exchange Meeting

Since 2010, the Office of Nuclear Physics (NP) has annually organized a multi-day information exchange meeting between the representatives of SBIR/STTR companies with active Phase II grants, scientists and engineers from the NP community, Federal Program Managers from NP and other DOE Offices and Federal Agencies. The meetings include presentations from the SBIR/STTR companies on their research as well as talks on the relevant technical needs of the NP community. Information on past meetings are available at the following links:

For further questions on the NP SBIR/STTR program please contact Dr. Michelle Shinn, or click here for more contact information.