Senterra II Raman Confocal Microscope System

Introduction
This is a notice of intent, not a request for a quotation. A solicitation document will not be issued and quotations will not be requested.
Purpose
The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) intends to negotiate a firm-fixed priced contract on a sole source basis with Bruker Scientific, LLC located at 40 Manning Road, Billerica, MA 01821.
Authority
This acquisition is being conducted under the authority of FAR Subpart 13.501 allowing the Contracting Officer (CO) to solicit from one source. The North American Industry Classification System (NAICS) code for this acquisition is 333314 - Optical Instrument and Lens Manufacturing with a size standard of 500 employees.
Description
The order shall be for the acquisition of a Senterra II Raman Confocal Microscope which meets the following requirements:
a) Integrated spectrometer: The system shall be equipped with a high throughput single stage spectrograph for good sensitivity ( < 0.0028 e-/pixel • s) and short measurement times (as low as 0.5 ms). This spectrograph must be fully integrated in the frame of an optical microscope, but not be separated and just optically coupled to it. The system should contain a highly sensitive ( < 0.0028 e-/pixel • s) thermoelectrically (TE) cooled charged couple device (CCD) Raman detector with at least 1650 pixels x 200 pixels, open electrode type.
b) Automated wavelength calibration: The system shall be automatically and continuously controlled for wavelength accuracy. In order to ensure wavelength accuracy, calibration shall be performed automatically before each Raman spectra acquisition by comparison of the laser frequency to neon bands. The need of additional measurements for reference or the need for external standard materials will be not accepted.
c) Wavelength accuracy: The system shall provide wavelength accuracy of 0.1 cm-1 RMS. This accuracy shall be reached even if lasers, gratings, or apertures are changed.
d) Full automation: All relevant components including lasers, gratings, filters, and apertures shall be motorized. The setting of these components shall be automated and fully controlled by software. No manual interference shall be required to change any of these components.
e) High spectral resolution: The system must cover its full spectral range (50 cm-1 to 4200 cm-1 for the 532 nm laser, 50 cm-1 to 3,500 cm-1 for the 785 nm laser, and 70 cm-1 to 3,500 cm-1 for the 1,064 nm laser) for Raman by a single scan with a reasonable spectral resolution (< 4 cm-1). For high resolution peak analysis, the system must be able to accomplish a spectral resolution of 1.5 cm-1. When measuring with a high spectral resolution of better than 2 cm-1 the system must offer a spectral range of at least (90 - 3,400) cm-1 for all excitation lines. For excitation lines 785 nm, 633 nm, and 532 nm, the lower cutoff shall be 50 cm- 1.
f) Raman imaging / fast mapping: The system shall have the capability for Raman imaging up to 100 spectra /sec. Different acquisition modes for Raman imaging shall be available to optimize data recording on both acquisition time and on spatial resolution, respectively. The Z drive motor of the motorized stages shall be encoded so that it measures how far it moves in the Z direction and is accurate to better than 1 µm.
g) Depth profiling / 3D imaging: The system shall be prepared for 3D imaging. Next to the motorized stage for moving the sample in x and y, a motorized drive shall realize the accurate movement in z. This z drive shall include an encoded motor like the motors for x and y of the stage in order to achieve the highest accuracy for all three directions.
h) Multi laser / FT-Raman: The system shall provide three different lasers for dispersive Raman microscopy. The system shall further allow use of FT-Raman with excitation at 1064 nm. In complete, the system shall have the capability to accommodate up to four lasers in parallel.
i) Confocal Raman microscope capabilities: The Raman microscope shall allow measurements in confocal mode, but shall also provide a high throughput mode. The confocal mode shall be able to achieve the highest spatial resolution (< 0.2 µm spatial resolution at 532 nm with 100x objective), the high throughput mode shall be able to achieve the highest spectral scanning rates of > 100 spectra per second. The switch between high throughput and confocal mode shall be automated and controlled by software. The confocal shall have a pinhole aperture and shall not use slits as an alternative.
j) Fluorescence rejection: The system shall be able to mitigate distortion of spectra due to fluorescence by the Concave Rubber band correction, an advanced and effective baseline correction method.
k) Software requirements: The full process of data acquisition, data processing, data evaluation and data visualization/reporting shall be managed by a single software which meets the following requirements:
o The graphical user interface (GUI) of this software must guide the operator smoothly step by step through the data acquisition. All data of a single experiment as spectra, parameters, visible images, shall be stored in a single file.
o Setting of relevant components and data acquisition shall be automated and controlled by the software.
o All results of one experiment shall be stored in a single file including visible images, spectral data, Raman images, parameters, and history trail.
o Software shall show Raman-images in 2D and 3D plots next to or on top of the visual images.
o Software shall include uni- and multivariate methods for data evaluation, including principal component analysis, 3D-cluster analysis, multi-linear regression, spectrum correlation.
o Software shall provide spectral search capabilities for mixture analysis. This is essential for using spectral data bases for identification of found compounds. Creation of user libraries shall be possible. Software shall allow creation and search of chemical structures in libraries.
o Software shall include export filters to use recorded data (in OPUS format) in other data formats that include data point table, grams, JCAMP, Galactic, XML, Matlab, and Pirouette formats. Export functionality for spectra and images to graphical formats shall be included in the software.
o The software shall have the ability to read and convert old Senterra XL data files.
o The quantification software package shall have self-optimizing calibration models.
o The software shall be validated.
o The software shall be compatible with the most recent version of Microsoft Windows
l) Verified performance: The system shall provide comprehensive operational (OQ) and performance (PQ) qualification. All OQ and PQ test routines shall be automated. Whenever the test for OQ or PQ has expired, there shall be immediate notification via the software.
m) Validation criteria: Software and hardware shall comply with Current Good Manufacturing Practice/Good Manufacturing Practice (cGMP/GMP) and Good Laboratory Practice (GLP) regulations. The software shall fulfill all requirements of the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) regulation 21 Code of Federal Regulations (CFR) part 11. The system shall be compliant to US-American Pharmacopeia (USP) and European Pharmacopeia (PhEur) according to USP 120 and PhEur 2.2.48, as well as for the guidelines of American Society of Testing and Materials (ASTM) E1840 and ASTM E2529-06 by fully automated test routines. A system validation manual shall be available guiding through the process of instrument qualification, including Design Qualification/Installation Qualification/Operational Qualification/Performance Qualification (DQ/IQ/OQ/PQ).
n) Manuals: Electronic copies of all manuals specific to the software and operation of the systems shall be provided by the manufacturer.
Sole Source Determination
The sole source determination is based on the following:
• The Senterra II is the only system in the marketplace that possesses a 1064 nm laser in combination with two other laser lines, a specification necessary to obtain molecular bonding information from samples analyzed in NIST projects. Specifically, this 1064 nm laser line is required to measure different types of aged/weathered samples which have interfering fluorescence at lower wavelengths or require a wavelength excitation higher than 785 nm to obtain molecular information.
• The Senterra II is the only microscope seamlessly compatible with the software of NIST's existing Senterra XL. The Senterra II system is able to open, process, and convert historical files from NIST's old Senterra XL which is critical to continuity of data for ongoing research projects.
• NIST has several on-going research projects that rely heavily on the existing Senterra XL and now require the Senterra II to be completed. These projects include the "Engineered Materials for Resilient Infrastructure" program for the characterization of various infrastructure materials and the "Net Zero Energy Research" program for the characterization of photovoltaic (PV) materials. Other projects include those that involve measurements of aged powerplant cables in the "NRC cables project," crystallinity and chemical changes in the "Weathering of Polymers" project, fiber reinforcement in the "Reliability of Fiber Reinforced composites in Infrastructure" project, and chemical composition of weathered paint systems in the "Forensics" project.
• The Senterra II is the only microscope system in the marketplace that can self-calibrate all three laser lines before every measurement. The system is also fully automated and computer driven, with automatic grating changes for low or high resolution without any physical swapping of gratings. Self-calibration during every measurement is required to achieve high accuracy of spectral frequency and full automation is especially important because of the large volume of NIST samples to be handled.
• The Senterra II is the only fully confocal microscope with a pinhole aperture. This feature is required to obtain good spatial resolution of Raman spectra throughout the depth of degraded samples (e.g. through a PV module). Additionally, the z-stage on the Senterra II is standard and provides for essential depth profiling.
Information for Interested Parties
Interested parties that believe they could satisfy the requirements listed above for NIST may clearly and unambiguously identify their capability to do so in writing by or before the response date for this notice. This notice of intent is not a solicitation.
Any questions regarding this notice must be submitted in writing via email to Ms. Lauren Phelps, Contract Specialist, at Lauren.Phelps@nist.gov. All responses to this notice of intent must be submitted via email to Lauren.Phelps@nist.gov so that they are received no later than March 14, 2019 at 11:00 AM Eastern Time.
Each response should include the following Business Information:
a. Contractor Name, Address,
b. Point of Contact Name, Phone Number, and Email address
c. Contractor DUNS
d. Contractor Business Classification (i.e., small business, 8(a), woman owned, hubZone, veteran owned, etc.) as validated in System for Award Management (SAM). All offerors must register in the SAM located at http://www.sam.gov/portal/SAM/#1
e. Capability Statement

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