SOURCES SOUGHT
66 -- SCINTILLATOR DATA ACQUISITION
- Notice Date
- 1/4/2016
- Notice Type
- Sources Sought
- NAICS
- 334516
— Analytical Laboratory Instrument Manufacturing
- Contracting Office
- Department of Commerce, National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), Acquisition Management Division, 100 Bureau Drive, Building 301, Room B130, Gaithersburg, Maryland, 20899-1410, United States
- ZIP Code
- 20899-1410
- Solicitation Number
- AMD-16-SS25
- Archive Date
- 2/2/2016
- Point of Contact
- Lynda M Roark, Phone: 3019753725, Patrick K Staines, Phone: (301)975-6335
- E-Mail Address
-
Lynda.Roark@nist.gov, patrick.staines@nist.gov
(Lynda.Roark@nist.gov, patrick.staines@nist.gov)
- Small Business Set-Aside
- N/A
- Description
- The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) NIST Center for Neutron Research (NCNR) seeks information on commercial vendors that are capable of providing data acquisition electronics for a scintillator based neutron proportional counter. The Research Facility Operations group at the NIST Center for Neutron Research has been engaged in a large development project to develop an ultrathin neutron detector as part of a larger project to develop and energy-analyzing neutron detector. The ultrathin sensor uses 6LiF:ZnS(Ag) plastic scintillator as the neutron converter. Scintillation light could be conducted out of the scattering plane into photosensors using wavelength shifting fiber optics. The photosensors selected for this application are silicon photomultipliers. These photosensors are inexpensive, use low bias voltages (< 100V), and are insensitive to the magnetic fields which are expected to be used by many sample environments on this spectrometer. The signal processing for this type of neutron detector is rather more sophisticated than that used for the more traditional gas-filled proportional counters. The burst of scintillation light produced by a gamma ray capture event can be equally as intense as that for the neutron capture event, but is much shorter lived (< 200 ns).. For this reason, the technique of Pulse Shape Analysis must be used to discriminate neutron capture events from gamma rays or other extraneous sources. To that end, the most flexible way of performing this signal processing is to digitize the amplified signal from the photosensor and to use programmable logic (e.g., FPGA) to apply the algorithm to the digitized waveforms. Alternatively it is possible to use discrete components of fixed values to approximate the pulse shape analysis algorithm. NIST is seeking contractor capabilities and pricing for these two general forms of solution to this requirement: one involving digitization and real time processing of analog signals from the photosensor and the other using a discrete component front end to discriminate the analog signal and a logic backend to read out those events. NIST is particularly interested in solutions which have a following characteristics: • Readout o Uses open communication standards (Ethernet & TCP/IP) o Scalable to 1620+ channels o Capable of assigning unique identifier (or "Pixel ID") to each channel • Timestamping o The system must be able to associate a timestamp with each neutron event (absolute or relative to a provided reference signal) o Time resolution is minimally 1 microsecond (<50 ns preferred) o Dynamic range of timestamping is 60 s or greater o Preference is given to a solution that can produce absolute timestamps according to the IEEE 1588 (Precision Time Protocol) standard • Throughput o The system must be able to handle 10,000 events per second per channel without any perceptible downtime o The system must be able to handle a total of 8 million events per second over the entire collection of channels After results of this market research are obtained and analyzed and specifications are developed for the instrumentation that can meet NIST's minimum requirements, NIST may conduct a competitive procurement and subsequently award a Purchase Order. If at least two qualified small businesses are identified during this market research stage, then any competitive procurement that resulted would be conducted as a small business set-aside. NIST is seeking responses from all responsible sources, including large, foreign, and small businesses. Small businesses are defined under the associated NAICS code for this effort, 334516, as those domestic sources having 500 employees or less. Please include your company's size classification and socio-economic status in any response to this notice. Companies that manufacture these instrumentations are requested to email a detailed report describing their abilities to Lynda.Roark@nist.gov no later than the response date for this sources sought notice. The report should include achievable specifications and any other information relevant to your product or capabilities. Also, the following information is requested to be provided as part of the response to this sources sought notice: 1. Name of the company that manufactures the system components for which specifications are provided. 2. Name of company(s) that are authorized to sell the system components, their addresses, and a point of contact for the company (name, phone number, fax number and email address). 3. Indication of number of days, after receipt of order that is typical for delivery of such systems. 4. Indication of whether each instrument for which specifications are sent to Lynda.Roark@nist.gov are currently on one or more GSA Federal Supply Schedule contracts and, if so, the GSA FSS contract number(s). 5. Any other relevant information that is not listed above which the Government should consider in developing its minimum specifications and finalizing its market research.
- Web Link
-
FBO.gov Permalink
(https://www.fbo.gov/spg/DOC/NIST/AcAsD/AMD-16-SS25/listing.html)
- Record
- SN03981989-W 20160106/160104234038-a8de3d385651f21efbaa81c686928440 (fbodaily.com)
- Source
-
FedBizOpps Link to This Notice
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