High-energy X-ray diffractometer with silver radiation

Active

Contract Opportunity

Document Type: Sources Sought Notice

Notice Number: NIST-MML-25-SS12

Title: High-energy X-ray diffractometer with silver radiation

NAICS Code: 334516 – Analytical Laboratory Instrument Manufacturing

Contracting Office Address

National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST),

Acquisition Management Division,

100 Bureau Drive, Mail Stop 1640,

Gaithersburg, MD, 20899-1640

This is a Sources Sought Notice ONLY. Requests for copies of a solicitation will not receive a response.

This Notice is for planning purposes only and is not a Request for Proposal or Request for Quotation or an obligation on the part of the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) for conducting a follow-on acquisition. NIST does not intend to award a contract on the basis of this Notice, or otherwise pay for the information requested. No entitlement or payment of direct or indirect costs or charges by NIST will arise as a result of submission of responses to this Notice and NIST use of such information. NIST recognizes that proprietary components, interfaces and equipment, and clearly mark restricted or proprietary components, interfaces and equipment, and clearly mark restricted or proprietary data and present it as an addendum to the non-restricted/non-proprietary information. In the absence of such identification, NIST will assume to have unlimited rights to all technical data in the information paper.

NO SOLICITATION DOCUMENTS EXIST AT THIS TIME.

Requirement

The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), Material Measurement Laboratory (MML), Materials Measurement Science Division (MMSD-643) requires an X-ray diffractometer instrument with a silver X-ray source and optimized for measuring X-ray total scattering to support several NIST’s projects requiring the understanding of the local atomic order in materials and in situ studies of material processes. These projects include AI-assisted synthesis of metal-organic framework materials, high-throughput design of high-entropy alloys, additive manufacturing of metals and developing methods for determining the local structure of inorganic and hybrid materials.

A silver X-ray source produces X-rays at a wavelength of 0.56 Å (k-alpha), and this allows accessing significantly larger values of the momentum transfer and a much deeper penetration of X-rays into inorganic matter compared to the more commonly available copper X-ray source. X-ray total scattering data includes the Bragg peaks, which reflect the average atomic arrangement, and a diffuse background, which contains information about the correlated deviations from this arrangement. Large values of the momentum transfer allow for the Fourier transformation of these data, yielding an atomic pair distribution function (PDF), which facilitates the determination of the local and nanoscale atomic order. Besides the short wavelength of the incident radiation, effective measurements of the total scattering require the instrument to be optimized for minimizing any parasitic backgrounds. The deeper penetration enabled by using the silver source permits in situ studies of material reactions using electrochemical or gas cells.

NIST is seeking information on vendors who could potentially provide the following.

X-ray Generator:

Voltage and current settings must be continuously adjustable via software.

X-ray Source:

Conventional sealed x-ray tube.

Silver target

Housing cap[able of accepting other standard conventional X-ray tubes, glass or ceramic, available from third parties, targets include copper and molybdenum radiation.

X-ray Optics:

Debye-Scherrer optics for transmission and capillary measurements

Computer controlled divergent slit and anti-scatter slit assemblies (incident and receiving)

Collimators, beam stops, and equivalent capabilities for reducing parasitic background scattering on both incident and detector sides

Geometries must include:

Horizontal or vertical goniometer

Independently driven omega and 2theta circles

Optical encoding system for goniometer positioning and accuracy

i. Minimum step size 0.0001°

ii. Step size reproducibility +/- 0.0005°

Software control/interface of components to prevent hardware collisions.

Detector

1D (line) detector with >40 % efficiency for silver radiation

1. 
   
   
   
   1. Single-photon counting
   
   
   2. Dynamic range: >10,000,000 cps
   
   
   3. Pixel size:
      
   4. Fast readout:
      
   5. Energy discrimination against fluorescence
   
   
   
   

Instrument configured with the following user-interchangeable sample stages and stage exchange able to be performed by laboratory staff at NIST:

Sample holder for capillaries capable of sample spinning

Sample changer for capillaries

Sample holder for flat samples for transmission measurements

Tools for mounting and aligning capillary samples

Reproducible positioning of optics and stages "alignment-free exchange"

All system optics, x-ray sources, detectors, and sample stages exchangeable and alignment free with reconfiguration doable by the NIST user onsite at NIST.

Unrestricted access into instrument enclosure to facilitate exchange of x-ray tubes, sample stages and instrument optics.

The enclosure with large tempered leaded glass windows.to allow high visibility of the sample and any add-on components.

Computer System for instrument control, data acquisition, processing and analysis.

Computer system with following features:

Windows 11 based computer

1 TB hard drive or larger

24" LCD monitor or larger

Keyboard (wired) with keypad

Mouse (wired)

16 GB RAM or larger

1 Ethernet ports minimum

4 USB 3.0 ports minimum

Data Display, Processing and Analysis

Intelligent software to recognize hardware components

1. to prevent hardware collisions


2. to facilitate hardware configuration changes and alignments.


3. to facilitate hardware alignments.

Full data collection and instrument control software, including capabilities for batch control of multiple samples.

Data analysis software as described below:

1. Comprehensive codes for instrument control, performance monitoring, data display, data manipulation, data processing and analysis, including peak search, indexing, and profile fitting


2. Data import and export in multiple file formats such as GSAS and X-Y.

Safety Enclosure: A system compliant with all State and Federal requirements for X-ray safety. Provide full radiation protection that includes safety interlocks. The enclosure allows high visibility and accessibility of the goniometer through large tempered leaded glass windows.

24-hour response time for problem inquiries by telephone or e-mail during a warranty and service/maintenance period.

Interested parties shall describe the capabilities of their organization as it relates to the service described above. NIST anticipates issuing a Request for Quotation in third quarter of FY2025 and awarding a contract no later than fourth quarter FY2025.

NIST is seeking responses from all responsible sources, including large and small businesses. The small business size standard associated with the NAICS code for this effort, 334516, is 1000 employees. Please include your company’s size classification and socio-economic status in any response to this notice.

After results of this market research are obtained and analyzed, NIST may conduct a competitive procurement and subsequently award a contract. Companies that can provide such items are requested to email a written response describing their abilities to Donald.graham@nist.gov no later than the response date for this sources sought notice.

The following information is requested to be provided as part of the response to this sources sought notice:

1. Name, Address, Unique Entity ID #, and point of contact information of your company.


2. Any information on the company’s small business certifications, if applicable.


3. Description of your company’s capabilities as they relate to the item described in this notice.


4. A description of your company’s previous experience providing the item described in this notice.


5. Indication of whether the item described in this notice are currently offered via your company’s GSA Federal Supply Schedule (FSS) contracts, Government-wide Acquisition Contracts (GWACs), or other existing Government-wide contract vehicles; and, if so, the contract number(s) for those vehicles.


6. Any other relevant information that is not listed above which the Government should consider in finalizing its market research.

Responses are limited to a total of twelve (12) pages. The responses must be in MS Word format. Pages shall be 8½-inch x 11-inch, using Times New Roman 11 Point Font. Each page shall have adequate margins on each side (at least one inch) of the page. Header/footer information (which does not include any information to be analyzed) may be included in the 1" margin space.

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