SSI News: [May 9, 2008] SSI is proud to announce the expansion of our online store. We have added over 100 new items including a variety of Avantes pre-configured spectrometers, interface cables, light sources, fiber-optic cables, probes, and accessories. In celebration of our store's expansion, we are offering a promotional discount of 5% off all orders placed before 5/31/08. Just enter the coupon code EXPANSIONSALE into the "Apply Coupon" field in the bottom right-hand corner of the shopping cart window before you checkout to receive your discount. This coupon is valid on everything in our store including in-stock LCFPs, used laboratory gear, and all Avantes fiber-optic spectroscopy products. We welcome you to visit our store and get what you need today.

SSI News: [March 20, 2008] After several years of space qualification, SSI's LCFP tunable filter has finally reached the final frontier! Shuttle "Endeavor" blasted off from Kennedy Space Center in the early morning hours of March 11, 2008 with a Utah State University (USU) experiment on board which included one of our LCFP etalons. Having previously passed a Pegusus-level shake and -10°C to +40°C thermal cycling at USU's Space Dynamics Laboratory (SDL) as well as independent LEO-level radiation tests at the Harvard Cyclotron, SSI's LCFP is now in its final test. Attached to the outside of the International Space Station, our LCFP will experience the full brunt of space’s punishing environment including atomic oxygen and charged particles in solar wind. The LCFP will be retrieved by shuttle astronauts in about 9-12 months and returned to USU's SDL for testing.

Photo courtesy of Jim
Grossmann, NASA.

SSI News: [March 15, 2008] Scientific Solutions, Inc. (SSI) has released a new brochure which we hope will serve as a compact Fabry-Perot reference handbook in addition to outlining the specifications of our next-generation optical instruments. The full-color brochure includes a brief Fabry-Perot 101 and a detailed crash course in Fabry-Perot Fundamentals. It goes on to describe our Air Gap Fabry-Perot Interferometers and their control systems, our LCFP tunable filters, our newest software-driver LCFP controller, and a handful of SSI's R&D Innovations. If you have not yet received your FREE copy, please send us an email with your mailing address and we will send one to you without delay.

SSI News: [February 12, 2008] SSI has reached a major milestone in the development of a new “segmented tunable filter”. This electro-optical filter is an innovation capable of simultaneously collecting spatial and spectral information while providing high spectral resolution and rapid tuning. Based upon Fabry-Perot technology, this next-generation tunable optical filter achieves multiple, independently tunable filter segments on a single substrate. The recently patented technology is intended for use as the key dispersive element in a hybrid multi-spectral imaging system and can be used to create multi-spectral imagers capable of generating small but dense data cubes of very narrow bandwidth spectral images. Development of the segmented tunable filter was made possible though a Phase II Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) award by the US Missile Defense Agency.

SSI News: [February 11, 2008] Scientific Solutions, Inc. (SSI) is pleased to announce that it has been awarded a 2-year Phase II SBIR contract by the United States Army for the development and construction of a "Spatial Heterodyne Interferometer for Emergent Line Discrimination Spectroscopy (SHIELDS)". The Phase II project officially started November 11, 2007, building upon work completed during a 6-month Phase I SBIR contract. This project will develop a camcorder-sized spectrometer capable of detecting chemical, biological, and radiological contaminants and their concentrations on a surface object. The SHIELDS unit will operate in real time with 100 times greater sensitivity than that of standard grating-based spectrometers, and will provide simultaneous reference frames.