Optowares Incorporated SBIR Phase I Award, February 2019

There is a lack of in-situ, non-contact, non-destructive techniques to detect the presence of particulates contaminating bulk liquid samples in clean room environment during semiconductor processing.  Leveraging our extensive experience building optical sensor systems, we will design and build an innovative handheld particle counter using diffusive wave spectroscopy. Our handheld system can be used to detect presence of particle sizes range from 20 nm to 20 micron in ~100 mL to 4l volume liquid without disrupting the liquid and with accuracy better than 10%. Use of handheld system will allow better control of the liquid quality used during the semiconductor processing and higher process yield.