SOURCES SOUGHT
66 -- PURCHASE OF SCANNING
- Notice Date
- 6/1/2007
- Notice Type
- Sources Sought
- NAICS
- 334516
— Analytical Laboratory Instrument Manufacturing
- Contracting Office
- NASA/John F. Kennedy Space Center, Procurement, Kennedy Space Center, FL 32899
- ZIP Code
- 32899
- Solicitation Number
- NNK07199735Q
- Response Due
- 6/8/2007
- Archive Date
- 6/1/2008
- Small Business Set-Aside
- N/A
- Description
- NASA/KSC is hereby soliciting information about potential sources to determine whether there are 2 or more small business sources that can meet NASA's requirement for the purchase of 1 each Scanning Electron Microscope, JEOL Model JSM-7500F or equal, with Cross Section Polisher, JEOL Model Number SM-09010(CP) or equal, and Vacuum Evaporator, JEOL Model Number JEE-420 or equal. The following specification is provided as the minimum salient characteristics for this purchase: 1. RESOLUTION: The upper secondary electron detector shall produce image resolution of 1.0 nm at 15kV and 3mm working distance and 1.4 nm at 1kV and 1.5mm working distance (WD). These values are guaranteed and demonstrable in the customer site. A resolution of 0.8nm will be guaranteed at 30 kV in STEM mode with 0.6nm attainable. A low kV resolution of 1.9 nm shall be attainable at 0.5 kV and 2.5 nm at 0.2 kV. It shall also be possible to maintain a resolution of 1.0 nm at 15 kV over a range of 500 pA to > 0.5 nA. 2. MAGNIFICATION: There shall be two magnification ranges available. A low magnification mode (LM) shall provide a range of 25X to 19,000X and a high resolution range (HR) of 100X to 1,000,000X .The magnification shall be microprocessor linked and compensated for changes in kV and WD. It shall be possible to switch between LM and HR modes with the press of a single button. When doing so it the image should not visibly shift at 2000X. Any magnification can be preset & recalled 3. ACCELERATING VOLTAGE: kV shall be variable from 0.1kV to 30kV with 10V steps between 0.1kV and 2.9kV and 100V steps between 3kV and 30kV. 4. ELECTRON GUN: The electron source shall consist of a field emission gun with a cold cathode. The emitter shall be a single crystal (310) orientation to provide the best possible resolution. The anode must be of conical design to minimize image shift and gun alignment when changing accelerating voltage. Emitters shall be guaranteed for 12 months and covered under the normal service contract and have an average lifetime of 3 years. 5. LENS SYSTEM: The lens system shall consist of a single stage condenser lens to minimize the need to realign the column when changing conditions. An aperture angle control lens shall be provided to optimize the Cs of the objective lens in order to achieve high performance at low kV & long WD and at larger probe currents. The lens maintains the minimum probe size for a given probe current automatically with no user intervention. This lens shall allow the probe current to be varied from less than 1x10-12Amps (Pico Amps) to 1x10-9 Amps (Nano Amps) with no change in probe diameter. The lens shall also be adjustable for large depth of field mode. The ACL shall be computer controlled and fully automatic. The objective lens aperture shall consist of four externally selectable, X/Y alignable apertures plus an open position. The apertures shall be in the front focal plane so as to maintain the optimum spot size as a function of beam current. It shall be possible to vary the beam current continuously between <1.0 pA and 5 nA using gun emission current, apertures, and condenser lens control. A wide bore objective lens shall be provided with the facility to accept a through-the-lens secondary electron detector, an in the lens backscatter detector and in lens electron filter. The lens system shall contain an electron energy filter capable of producing images that contain pure topography contrast (secondary electron contrast), pure atomic number contrast (backscatter electron contrast), SE contrast with a variable amount of BSE contrast and BSE contrast with variable amounts of SE contrast. A liquid nitrogen cold finger shall be included and reside below the OL pole piece surface to act as an anticontaminator cold trap. This attachment shall not hinder the collection of x-rays, limit stage tilt or prohibit the use of the SE and BSE detectors. It shall be possible to add an optionally available Faraday cup into the column just below the objective lens aperture for the purpose of measuring the true probe current. The system shall be capable of decelerating the electron beam allowing the gun voltage to remain high while the voltage at the sample is reduced thus improving resolution by reducing aberrations and decreasing beam penetration at low accelerating voltages. 6. ELECTRON DETECTOR SYSTEM: A secondary electron detector system consisting of both an upper and lower E-T type detector shall be standard. The upper SED shall collect electrons through the OL bore from a sample working distance range of 1mm to >15mm. The lower SED shall be operational in the range at 6mm or greater. It shall be possible to switch between the two detectors by the press of a single button. A low angle, retractable, solid state backscattered electron detector shall be standard. This backscattered detector should not limit the working distance of the microscope and be capable of producing usable BEI images down to 0.1kV. An integrated retractable in the lens backscattered electron detector of solid state design shall be optionally available, and allow operation at working distances as short as 1.5mm with resolution of 1.5nm at 15kV. A retractable below the lens detector should be optionally available, and allow operation at working distances as short as 6mm. The detector shall be operational from the SEM GUI. It shall be possible to align the BEI detectors externally. These detectors shall produce both compositional and topographical contrast images and be operational down to 1kV. The detectors shall not interfere with collection of X-Rays. It shall be possible to have all three BSE detectors installed on the chamber simultaneously. A retractable GUI controlled, scintillator/ photomultiplier, BF/DF STEM detector shall be included. This to be motor driven to switch between dark and bright fields, and for insertion and retraction. 7. SPECIMEN STAGE AND CHAMBER: The sample stage shall be a mechanically fully eucentric tilt at all Z positions, large goniometer. Stage movement should be at least 70mm in X, 50 mm in Y and 1.5mm-38mm in Z. The stage shall be eucentric at all working distances and tilts. The tilt range must be from ?V5?X to at least 70?a.The tilt axis must be perpendicular to a dedicated port for EBSD. All 5 stage axes (X, Y, Z & R and T) shall be motorized and automated and include computer eucentric rotation The stage shall be capable of meeting all resolution specifications without a stage lock or clamp. The stage shall incorporate a vibration dampener that is always in place & active that does not restrict any stage axis movement. The sample substage should be electrically isolated and contain a sample current feed-thru to measure absorbed current/probe current. The combination of specimen chamber design and objective lens shape must be optimized for an analytical geometry of the sample at 0?X Tilt at 8mm WD with an EDS take off angle not less than 30?X. The chamber must also be capable of accommodating multiple EDS detectors simultaneously. An active vibration cancellation device shall be built into the system. The stage shall be capable of having a bias voltage of one hundred volts to 2.0kV allowing for deceleration of the primary e-beam for resolution enhancement and charge reduction. The stage automation system shall be controlled through mouse control, programmable trackball and magnification linked touch pad and allow the following functions: a. Eucentric rotation b. Continuous movement with the speed linked to magnification. c. Snap shot image capture for sample survey d. Step distance defined by user or by field with defined % overlap. e. Click center and zoom f. Points table and on screen graphics g. Hard limits and soft limits linked to sample holder and user input of sample height h. PQ alignments The column shall have an acoustic dampening coating. The Specimen Chamber shall be equipped with an Infrared Chamberscope, integrated with the SEM PC Monitor via Picture in Picture. This image must be sizeable from 640 X 480 to 80 X 60 and can be moved to any position on the viewable area of the monitor. The IR lamps must be able to be turned on/off by computer control. 8. SPECIMEN EXCHANGE LOADLOCK: A specimen exchange airlock shall be available to allow up to 6-inch diameter by 1-inch tall samples, (or 4?? wide by 40mm tall samples) to be loaded with a cycle time of less than 90 seconds. The sample loading procedure should require a single movement, be fail-safe and not require observation of the sample stage. The load lock shall be pumped to appropriate vacuum via vacuum gauge reading and not a timer. The airlock door shall open automatically upon reaching vacuum and shall remain part of the high vacuum region. There shall be an indicator showing the presence or absence of a specimen on the stage. There shall also be an audible alarm if the air lock rod is activated while the stage is not at the exchange position. An 8 inch autoloader must be optionally available for loading of samples up to 8?? in diameter. 9. COMPUTER CONTROL SYSTEM: All microscope functions shall be controlled through a Windows XP PC based interface with password protected user login. This system should reside on a Pentium processor and be operated from an 20 inch color flat panel display with a pixel resolution of at least 1280x1024. The control graphical user interface (GUI) shall be easy to understand and use. The operation of the electron optics system shall be computer aided so that a minimum of fine tuning is required even when changing accelerating voltages. This system shall also allow the following functions: a. Image archiving (TIFF, JPEG and BMP) with integrated data base management b. Network interfacing c. EDS integration (No additional hardware or software required on SEM) d. Image processing e. Mouse, keyboard, trackball, touch pad and digi-knob operation f. TV output g. Image annotation with changeable fonts, colors, special characters with linear & angular measurement. h. On screen task specific help i. On screen graphics of vacuum status, sample status, beam status and detector(s) status j. Integrated HT Wobbler for beam alignment k. A password protected master column & gun alignment with overriding user adjustments l. Integrated desk to printing with image proceesing, annotation and multiple templates. Framestore functions such as frame averaging, pixel integration, frame integration shall be built into the computer control system. Auto functions such as Auto-Focus, Auto-Stigmation and Auto-Exposure shall also be included. Stage automation shall include features such as eucentric rotation (about any point on the sample), snap shot sample review, click to center, and a programmable move by field or defined absolute amount button. The operation system shall have both standard ??recipes?? of common operating conditions for standard sample types as well as user created recipes for custom applications which can be stored and recalled. Recipes shall be tagged to user login. In addition every image shall contain an automatically generated recipe of column and stage conditions which can be reset. 10. DIGITAL SCAN GENERATOR: The digital scan generator shall be capable of high speed scanning and image acquisition of up to 5120 X 3840 pixels. The live image shall be displayed on the display at 800 X 600 or 1280 X 960 resolution. The system will allow for image acquisition at 8 or 16 bit resolution The system shall include a digital scan rotation feature that automatically corrects for accelerating voltage and working distance and any user entered angle of scan rotation to maintain orthogonal motion on the display. Image display modes should include: normal display, full screen display, live image with user defined digital zoom window, D-Mag (true Mag Mode) user defined reduced raster, live horizontal or vertical split screen, live quad image display, signal mixing of up to 4 live signals, dual color for mixed signals, pseudo color, and analyglyph stereo. Image enhancement algorithms should be provided for gray scale manipulation on both a stored and a live image. 11. VACUUM SYSTEM: The gun chamber should be ion pumped and shall maintain a UHV pressure of better than 10-7 Pa. The intermediate chambers shall also be ion pumped. A magnetic bearing, oil free turbo-molecular pump shall be standard. A battery back up power supply shall be standard for the ion pumps eliminating the need for gun bake-out and realignment even after an extender power outage. A liquid nitrogen cold finger shall be fitted to the bottom of the OL pole piece to act as an anticontaminator cold trap. This shall not hinder the motion of the stage, reduce resolution specifications or block X-Ray collection and can be cooled at the operator??s discretion. 12. MISC. The console shall have an Emergency Power Off (EPO) switch mounted on the front of the instrument. There shall be a low energy consumption mode (Sleep mode) to reduce electrical cost during standby. The system must include a Video Server allowing internet access via IP address for live remote viewing. A Cross Section Polisher (SM-09010(CP) for specimen preparation shall be included. This to be a stand alone device comprised of a chamber evacuated by an included Rotary pump and TMP vacuum system. The device shall be fully automated and equipped with ion gun, shield retainer, and specimen stage system that supports X & Y movement and angle control, designed to project an ion beam vertically on a shield plate on the sample surface to create a cross section along the boundary of the area being etched by the ion beam and the area blocked by the shield plate. This device shall be able to achieve 1.2 micron/min etching rate at 6kV on a Si sample. A Vacuum Evaporator (JEE-420) composed of an evaporation head, automated evacuation system/ electric system shall be included. This system shall be designed to easily prepare specimens for transmission and scanning electron microscopy. Major applications to include various metal evaporation films, carbon reinforcement of collodion films, metal shadowing on replica films and conductive coating on non-conductive or biological specimen surfaces, suitable for high resolution microscopy. Cleaning of apertures on electron microscopes, various process and experiments in a high-vacuum environment can also be carries out with this required instrument. 13. INSTALLATION & TRAINING The system shall include installation & proof of resolution at NASA/Kennedy Space Center facility with a one year warranty of all parts and labor for the FESEM. Minimum four day applications training for 1 person at provider??s facility to include supplies and tuition. No solicitation exists; therefore, do not request a copy of the solicitation. If a solicitation is released it will be synopsized in FedBizOpps and on the NASA Acquisition Internet Service. It is the potential offeror's responsibility to monitor these sites for the release of any solicitation or synopsis. Small business vendors having the capabilities necessary to meet or exceed the stated requirements are invited to submit appropriate documentation, literature, brochures, and references to clearly show that they can meet the requirements described. Questions should be directed to Anthony.Caruvana@nasa.gov. This synopsis is for information and planning purposes and is not to be construed as a commitment by the Government nor will the Government pay for information solicited. Respondents will not be notified of the results of the evaluation. Respondents deemed fully qualified will be considered in any resultant solicitation for the requirement. The Government reserves the right to consider a small business or 8(a) set-aside based on responses hereto. All responses shall be submitted to Anthony Caruvana, Contracting Officer no later than June 8, 2007. Please reference solicitation number NNK07199735Q in any response. Any referenced notes may be viewed at the following URLs linked below.
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