Sbir phase i: quantum power chip component development

Direct Kinetic Solutions Inc. received a $255,139 Project Grant award from the National Science Foundation to develop quantum power chip components under the NSF Technology, Innovation, and Partnership program (CFDA 47.084). The award aims to enhance a radiosotopic compound used in the company's miniature power sources, which generate continuous power for electronic devices to address idle, standby, and battery drain without maintenance in remote and austere environments including space applications. By improving the compound's area coverage, the company hypothesizes power output can be at least doubled to provide alternative power solutions tailored for customers' needs. Work will be performed in El Paso, TX from October 1, 2022 through March 31, 2023.

Abstract

The broader impact/commercial potential of this small business innovation research (sbir) project is aiming to put a minute power plant in the motherboard of electronic devices. Every device with a battery in IT has the potential to be enhanced with the proposed approach. This will take care of the idle and standby functions, preventing unnecessary battery drain. The benefits this provides are enormous, as an example, a potential customer was able to monitor a grain silo for a year transmitting once a day with its current setup, by adding one of the proposed power sources, they could monitor for five years while transmitting once an hour. The markets where such devices are expected to shine are IOT, especially for companies offering sensing as a service, particularly in remote, austere, and hostile environments where maintaining sensors is too costly, and in space. In space, we offer a third power alternative to the small satellite and below spacecraft. The proposed power sources can be used to continuously generate power for the entire system, or be used as a redundant power source to ensure critical systems are always alive. The company expects to commercialize the finished product by the end of 2023. This sbir phase i project proposes to enhance the radioisotopic compound used in the power sources under development. The product is composed of three major components, the semiconductor (chip), the compound (the fuel and target for this engagement), and the encapsulation (putting them both together and ensuring they are producing power). The compound improvement is expected to enhance the power generation of our devices. From previous experiments, IT was discovered that the area coverage of the previous version of the compound could be greatly improved. As coverage improves, the power output is expected to improve accordingly, the hypothesis is that IT will be possible to at least double the previous power output results. Following such an anticipated significant improvement in the compound performance, the company will experiment with different chip combinations, this will allow for the creation of alternatives for potential customers, depending on their power and budget needs. This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.