Photothermal Spectroscopy Corp.

Photothermal Spectroscopy Corp., a minority-owned, Subcontinent Asian American-owned small business manufacturer based in Santa Barbara, California, designs and sells optical photothermal infrared (O-PTIR) microscopy systems and related analytical instruments to federal research and regulatory agencies, operating almost exclusively as a prime contractor (95% of recent awards) on purchase orders and research grants rather than on standing contract vehicles.

The vendor's federal footprint centers on research-grade microscopy hardware and the emerging microplastics-analysis market. Recent representative work includes a $744,500 firm fixed-price purchase order from the National Institute of Standards and Technology in August 2024 for a Mirage O-PTIR microscope (ultimate completion November 30, 2027); a $680,431 NIST procurement for an Optical Photothermal Infrared microscope running through October 2028; a $637,260 Total Small Business Set-Aside purchase order from the Food and Drug Administration in August 2025 for an O-PTIR-R-FL microscope with simultaneous Raman and fluorescence imaging for micro- and nanoplastics analysis in food (ultimate completion January 20, 2027); and a $553,660 sole-source Department of Veterans Affairs order for an mIRage-LS sub-micron IR multimodal microscope placed with VISN 9 Nashville in August 2023. The vendor also holds a $53,100 FDA purchase order from September 2026 for infrared system add-ons for microplastics analysis (completion December 9, 2027).

Customer concentration is fragmented across federal research agencies. The National Institutes of Health's National Institute of General Medical Sciences leads by award count (4 awards) but carries no published potential value in the source; NIST ranks first by potential value (3 awards, $1.4 million combined), followed by FDA (2 awards, $690 thousand) and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (3 awards, $268 thousand). The top five agencies account for 74% of recent awards. The vendor does not sit on multi-award government-wide vehicles (GWACs, BPAs, or IDIQs); all work flows through individual purchase orders and grant awards. Combined potential value across all awards stands at $2.9 million, though combined dollars obligated exceed $18.1 million, reflecting prior obligations on completed or continuing work.

Photothermal Spectroscopy Corp. also operates as a federal grant recipient, primarily under Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Phase II awards from the National Institutes of Health and the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences. Recent grants include a $1,022,908 SBIR Phase II award from NIEHS in August 2026 under the Environmental Health program (CFDA 93.113) for development and commercialization of the Photothermal Infrared Particle Analyzer (PIPA), a high-speed automated platform for detecting and analyzing microplastics below 20 micrometers with throughput exceeding 1,000 particles per hour (completion July 31, 2028); a $306,802 SBIR Phase I award from the National Institute of General Medical Sciences in September 2026 (CFDA 93.859) to develop a photothermal stimulated Raman scattering microscope for label-free chemical imaging of live cells in multiwell plates (completion August 31, 2027); and a $283,490 Cooperative Agreement from NIST under the CHIPS Research and Development program (CFDA 11.042) awarded October 2024 to develop a Gigahertz Optical Photothermal Infrared instrument for semiconductor thermal properties analysis with subaward activity (completion July 31, 2027). A Phase II SBIR grant from NIGMS awarded July 2024 targets video-rate photothermal infrared spectroscopy with 10–30x better spatial resolution than conventional IR systems and 1,000x faster operation than prior photothermal infrared microscopes (completion June 30, 2027). The vendor also performs as a sub-recipient on a University of Central Florida Board of Trustees grant, providing manufacturing and applications engineering support for IR microscope assembly, installation, and component optimization.

Activity is sporadic across the measurement window — one award in 2022, three in 2023 and 2024, one in 2025, and three in 2026. Six awards (combined potential value $1.4 million) face ultimate completion inside the next twenty-four months, creating near-term recompete exposure. The vendor does not carry parent subcontract relationships; its single sub-award is a grant sub-recipient role with UCF. Primary NAICS concentration is Analytical Laboratory Instrument Manufacturing (8 awards), with secondary PSC coding in Laboratory Equipment and Supplies. The vendor competes in full-and-open procurement; recent FDA work was structured as a Total Small Business Set-Aside, but most awards carry no set-aside designation.