Inactive

BACKGROUND NIST has a need for three lock-in amplifiers that meets or exceeds the following draft minimum specifications: The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) is seeking informati... BACKGROUND NIST has a need for three lock-in amplifiers that meets or exceeds the following draft minimum specifications: The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) is seeking information from sources that may be capable of providing a lock-in amplifier. NIST is constructing a custom Time Domain Thermoreflectance (TDTR) instrument. In TDTR, a modulated ultrafast laser “pump” pulse heats the sample and a delayed pulsed “probe” beam interrogates the thermal properties of thin film or multilayered materials as a function of the probe delay time. Lock-in amplifiers are used to detect the thermal response signal of the probe beam, which acquires the same modulation frequency of the modulated pump beam. Lock-in amplifiers can extract very small signals buried in noise. The working principle of a lock-in amplifier, called demodulation or phase-sensitive detection, rests on mixing the measured signal with a reference frequency followed by low-pass filtering. Boxcar Averager units integrated within one of the lock-ins will increase the measurement speed and signal-to-noise ratio (SNR). The lock-in amplifiers shall be fully compatible with Zurich Instruments software development kit LabOne® and LabOne® Application Programming Interface (APIs) due to pre-existing proprietary custom software. Furthermore, all three lock-in amplifiers in this requirement shall be fully compatible with Zurich Instruments ZSync proprietary bus to locally interconnect all three lock-ins for multi-device synchronization (MDS) and for compatibility with pre-existing Zurich Instruments HF2LI lock-ins in our lab. Zurich Instruments hardware and the LabOne® software enable multi-device synchronization (MDS) for up to 8 instruments and allows users to access them through a single graphical user interface and LabOne® API session. The TDTR instrument will enable NIST to uniquely measure the in situ thermal properties of thin film and multilayer materials in wide bandgap power electronics materials, packaging materials, and integrated chip components, directly supporting our CHIPS Project: Thermoreflectance Thermal Property Measurements. This CHIPS project supports Grand Challenge 4: Modeling and Simulating Semiconductor Materials, Designs, and Components. HOW TO RESPOND TO THIS NOTICE In responding to this notice, please DO NOT PROVIDE PROPRIETARY INFORMATION. Please include only the following information, readable in either Microsoft Word 365, Microsoft Excel 365, or .pdf format, in the response. Submit the response by email to the Primary Point of Contact and, if specified, to the Secondary Point of Contact listed at the bottom of this notice as soon as possible, and preferably before the closing date and time of this notice. Provide the complete name of your company, address, name of contact for follow-up questions, their email, their phone number and, if your company has an active registration in https://sam.gov, your company’s Unique Entity ID (UEI). Details about what your company is capable of providing that meets or exceeds NIST’s minimum requirements. Whether your company is an authorized reseller of the product or service being cited and evidence of such authorization. Identify any aspects of the description of the requirements in the BACKGROUND section above that could be viewed as unduly restrictive or create unnecessary barriers that adversely affect your firm’s ability to fully participate in a procurement for such services and explain why. Please offer suggestions for how the requirements could be organized or structured to encourage the participation of small businesses. For the NAICS code Indicate whether your company is (a) a small business or (b) other than small business. See the Table of Small Business Size Standards and the associated .pdf download file for small business size standards and additional information. If you believe the NAICS code listed in this notice is not the best NAICS code for the type of product addressed in this notice, identify an alternative NAICS code that you believe would be more appropriate for the planned procurement. If your firm has existing Federal Supply Schedule contract(s) or other contracts for products or services against which the Department may be able to place orders, identify the contract number(s) and other relevant information. Describe your firm’s experience (as a prime, subcontractor, or consultant) providing the products or services described in Background section. Provide any other information that you believe would be valuable for the Government to know as part of its market research for this requirement. Please let us know if you would like to engage to get a better understanding of the requirement or need additional information about the Government’s requirement for the products or services described in the Background section. QUESTIONS REGARDING THIS NOTICE Questions regarding this notice may be submitted via email to the Primary Point of Contact and the Secondary Point of Contact listed in this notice. Questions should be submitted so that they are received by 11:00 a.m. Eastern Time on June 12, 2024. Questions will be anonymized and answered via sources sought notice amendment following the question submission deadline. IMPORTANT NOTES The information received in response to this notice will be reviewed and considered so that the NIST may appropriately solicit for its requirements in the near future. This notice should not be construed as a commitment by the NIST to issue a solicitation or ultimately award a contract. This notice is not a request for a quotation. Responses will not be considered as proposals or quotations. No awards will be made as a result of this notice. NIST is not responsible for any costs incurred by the respondents to this notice. NIST reserves the right to use information provided by respondents for any purpose deemed necessary and appropriate. Thank you for taking the time to submit a response to this request!