U.S. EPA, Contracts Management Div, Cinicnnati, OH, 45268-7001

66 -- PURCAHSE OF NANOSCOPE SOL 96-111 POC Pam Legare (513-366-2015) The USEPA plans to negotiate a contract on a sole source basis with Digital Instruments to provide a NANOSCALE 3 AFM imaging system. Negotiations shall be conducted pursuant to the authority of 41 U.S.C. 253 (c)(1), which allows for negotiation without full and open competition if there is only one responsible source. The basis for this determination is that the U.S. EPA-Ecosystems research Division in Athens has a requirement to upgrade their existing Digital Instrument Nanoscope III scanning tunneling, atomic force, and electrochemical microscopes and the control stations and includes: (1) Nanoscope III to Nanoscope IIa Control station upgrade to provide two extra digital-to-analog convertors, a Z-modulation injection point, a high speed serial interface, a new connector inside the existing instrument controller with 12 undedicated digital inputs and 12 undedicated outputs and an analog power supply with a 50% increase in capacity; (2) Nanoscope multimode AFM for contact, noncontact, lateral force, magnetic force, tapping mode and electrochemical force microscopy; and includes a top view Multimode AFM optical head for on-axis viewing of the probe sample and multimode base with automatic approach system, 45x monocular microscope, with laser safety filter, XY sample stage with 2mm x 2mm range, probe handling tools and mica sample for atomic sampling; (3) video system for Multimode AFM microscope for simultaneous optical imaging operation with 450x magnification monitoring capability. Features total vertical range )400nm and course, mid-and -fine-focus adjustments, 10x Nikon objective, Sony high resolution CCD color camera and a Sony 13-inch color display monitor; and (4) a force modulation cantilever for scanning in air with the multimode AFM including cantilever holder with separate pizeo oscillator for larger amplitude force modulation capability and 10 FESP tip probes. THIS IS NOT A REQUEST FOR PROPOSALS. Sources wishing to be considered must submit documentation to the office identified above which establishes that their specifications are compatible with NANOSCOPE III AFM. Documentation should be submitted within 5 days of publication of this notice. (0228)

Loren Data Corp. http://www.ld.com (SYN# 0289 19960816\66-0022.SOL)