{"canonical":"https://abierto.us/opportunities/nb6840702402660","key":"NB6840702402660","url":"https://abierto.us/opportunities/nb6840702402660","title":"Notice of Intent to Sole Source: Attocube Three Axis Laser Fiber Interferometer","solicitation_number":"NB684070-24-02660","notice_type":"s","open":false,"response_deadline":"2024-07-17T15:00:00Z","first_posted":"2024-07-03","last_posted":"2024-07-19","department":"COMMERCE, DEPARTMENT OF","subagency":"NATIONAL INSTITUTE OF STANDARDS AND TECHNOLOGY","office":"DEPT OF COMMERCE NIST","naics":"334516","psc":"6695","set_aside":null,"place_state":"MD","place_county":"24031","place_county_name":"Montgomery County","place_city":"2431175","place_city_name":"Gaithersburg","winner":null,"award_amount":null,"publications":[{"notice_id":"dfe7464f683a44ee98d538d2ca49716d","title":"Attocube Three Axis Laser Fiber Interferometer","solicitation_number":"NB684070-24-02660","notice_type":"r","base_type":"r","posted":"2024-07-03","posted_at":null,"due_at":"2024-07-17T15:00:00Z","due_date":"2024-07-17","cancelled":null,"archived":null,"archive_date":"2024-08-01","award_number":null,"awardee_name":null,"amount":null,"link_sam":"https://sam.gov/workspace/contract/opp/dfe7464f683a44ee98d538d2ca49716d/view","enriched":false,"history":[]},{"notice_id":"71543a245e484eacb7ab2b6b45b3c1f5","title":"Notice of Intent to Sole Source: Attocube Three Axis Laser Fiber Interferometer","solicitation_number":"NB684070-24-02660","notice_type":"s","base_type":"r","posted":"2024-07-19","posted_at":null,"due_at":"2024-08-02T16:00:00Z","due_date":"2024-08-02","cancelled":null,"archived":null,"archive_date":"2024-08-17","award_number":null,"awardee_name":null,"amount":null,"link_sam":"https://sam.gov/workspace/contract/opp/71543a245e484eacb7ab2b6b45b3c1f5/view","enriched":false,"history":[]}],"latest_notice_id":"71543a245e484eacb7ab2b6b45b3c1f5","first_type":"r","notices":[{"dates":{"posted":"2024-07-03","response_deadline":{"raw":"2024-07-17T11:00:00-04:00","utc":"2024-07-17T15:00:00Z","date":"2024-07-17","time":"11:00:00","utc_offset_seconds":-14400}},"links":{"sam":"https://sam.gov/workspace/contract/opp/dfe7464f683a44ee98d538d2ca49716d/view"},"naics":{"codes":["334516"],"primary":"334516"},"title":"Attocube Three Axis Laser Fiber Interferometer","agency":{"office":{"code":"1333ND","name":"DEPT OF COMMERCE NIST"},"subtier":{"code":"1341","name":"NATIONAL INSTITUTE OF STANDARDS AND TECHNOLOGY"},"department":{"code":"013","name":"COMMERCE, DEPARTMENT OF"},"office_address":{"zip":"20899","city":"GAITHERSBURG","state":"MD","country":"USA"},"organization_type":"OFFICE"},"status":{"active":false,"archive_date":"2024-08-01","archive_type":"auto15"},"contacts":[{"name":"Cielo Ibarra","role":"primary","email":"cielo.ibarra@nist.gov"}],"base_type":{"code":"r","label":"Sources Sought"},"notice_id":"dfe7464f683a44ee98d538d2ca49716d","provenance":{"extract":{"url":"https://s3.amazonaws.com/falextracts/Contract%20Opportunities/Archived%20Data/FY2024_archived_opportunities.csv","etag":"\"d582488fe153a9f11bf629913d176ffc-137\"","fetched_at":"2026-09-16T19:07:39.720164Z","row_sha256":"5031ae220459f64e505ade2a951091a9d5e475f0ca01c752ff27476a4fc9632e","last_modified":"2026-09-13T14:47:40Z"},"updated_at":"2026-09-16T19:07:39.720164Z","first_seen_at":"2026-09-16T19:07:39.720164Z"},"description":{"text":"NB684070-24-02660 6695 / 334516 Title:? Attocube three axis laser fiber interferometer BACKGROUND The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) has a need to obtain one (1) Attocube three axis laser fiber interferometer for a liquid dispensing electrostatic force balance to disseminate mass less than 1 gram and force less than 10 millinewtons. The purchase is required for the TrueBq IMS project’s final year and is necessary to meet near term project deliverables for uncertainty in liquid mass. NIST has a need for one (1) Attocube three axis laser fiber interferometer that meets or exceeds the following draft minimum specifications: Line Item 0001: Attocube Laser Interferometer Description: Three axis laser fiber interferometer for a liquid dispensing electrostatic force balance to disseminate mass less than 1 gram and force less than 10 millinewtons. Quantity: One (1) Technical Specifications System must be drop-in compatible with existing electrostatic force balance. Digital transfer capability must be possible using both AquaB and Attocube proprietary HSSL. System must measure absolute path length of laser with relative accuracy of less than 1 ppm. System must support 1 picometer position resolution with at least 47-bit digital readout at 10 MHz bandwidth. Digital high-speed serial, analog and AquadB outputs required. System must have at least 6 position measurement axis channels. Frequency stabilized laser must be included in system. System requires laser frequency stability of less than 50 ppb over 1 hour. Laser must be class 1, must include visible alignment laser. System laser must have position accuracy of 1 ppm or less. Position measurement must be traceable through an internal laser frequency to an accepted molecular or atomic internationally accepted reference. System must include environmental compensation to measure temperature, pressure and humidity and compensate position measurement from beam path refractive index changes. System must include all optics (except for reflecting mirrors), hardware and software necessary to perform three-axis displacement measurement. One Vacuum fiber feedthrough for and vacuum compatible miniature sensor must be included. System must include measurement software to acquire position and vibration data. HOW TO RESPOND TO THIS NOTICE In responding to this notice, please DO NOT PROVIDE PROPRIETARY INFORMATION. Please include only the following information, readable in either Microsoft Word 365, Microsoft Excel 365, or .pdf format, in the response. Submit the response by email to the Primary Point of Contact and, if specified, to the Secondary Point of Contact listed at the bottom of this notice as soon as possible, and preferably before the closing date and time of this notice. Provide the complete name of your company, address, name of contact for follow-up questions, their email, their phone number and, if your company has an active registration in https://sam.gov, your company’s Unique Entity ID (UEI). Details about what your company is capable of providing that meets or exceeds NIST’s minimum requirements. Whether your company is an authorized reseller of the product or service being cited and evidence of such authorization. Identify any aspects of the description of the requirements in the BACKGROUND section above that could be viewed as unduly restrictive or create unnecessary barriers that adversely affect your firm’s ability to fully participate in a procurement for such services and explain why. Please offer suggestions for how the requirements could be organized or structured to encourage the participation of small businesses. For the NAICS code Indicate whether your company is (a) a small business or (b) other than small business. See the Table of Small Business Size Standards and the associated .pdf download file for small business size standards and additional information. If you believe the NAICS code listed in this notice is not the best NAICS code for the type of product addressed in this notice, identify an alternative NAICS code that you believe would be more appropriate for the planned procurement. If your firm has existing Federal Supply Schedule contract(s) or other contracts for products or services against which the Department may be able to place orders, identify the contract number(s) and other relevant information. Describe your firm’s experience (as a prime, subcontractor, or consultant) providing the products or services described in Background section. Provide any other information that you believe would be valuable for the Government to know as part of its market research for this requirement. Please let us know if you would like to engage to get a better understanding of the requirement or need additional information about the Government’s requirement for the products or services described in the Background section. QUESTIONS REGARDING THIS NOTICE Questions regarding this notice may be submitted via email to the Primary Point of Contact and the Secondary Point of Contact listed in this notice. Questions should be submitted so that they are received by 11:00 a.m. Eastern Time on July 10, 2024. Questions will be anonymized and answered via sources sought notice amendment following the question submission deadline. IMPORTANT NOTES The information received in response to this notice will be reviewed and considered so that the NIST may appropriately solicit for its requirements in the near future. This notice should not be construed as a commitment by the NIST to issue a solicitation or ultimately award a contract. This notice is not a request for a quotation. Responses will not be considered as proposals or quotations. No award will be made as a result of this notice. NIST is not responsible for any costs incurred by the respondents to this notice. NIST reserves the right to use information provided by respondents for any purpose deemed necessary and appropriate. Thank you for taking the time to submit a response to this request.","origin":"extract"},"notice_type":{"code":"r","label":"Sources Sought"},"schema_version":1,"solicitation_number":"NB684070-24-02660","place_of_performance":{"zip":"20899","city":{"name":"Gaithersburg"},"state":{"code":"MD"},"country":{"code":"USA"}},"product_service_code":"6695"},{"dates":{"posted":"2024-07-19","response_deadline":{"raw":"2024-08-02T12:00:00-04:00","utc":"2024-08-02T16:00:00Z","date":"2024-08-02","time":"12:00:00","utc_offset_seconds":-14400}},"links":{"sam":"https://sam.gov/workspace/contract/opp/71543a245e484eacb7ab2b6b45b3c1f5/view"},"naics":{"codes":["334516"],"primary":"334516"},"title":"Notice of Intent to Sole Source: Attocube Three Axis Laser Fiber Interferometer","agency":{"office":{"code":"1333ND","name":"DEPT OF COMMERCE NIST"},"subtier":{"code":"1341","name":"NATIONAL INSTITUTE OF STANDARDS AND TECHNOLOGY"},"department":{"code":"013","name":"COMMERCE, DEPARTMENT OF"},"office_address":{"zip":"20899","city":"GAITHERSBURG","state":"MD","country":"USA"},"organization_type":"OFFICE"},"status":{"active":false,"archive_date":"2024-08-17","archive_type":"auto15"},"contacts":[{"name":"Cielo Ibarra","role":"primary","email":"cielo.ibarra@nist.gov"}],"base_type":{"code":"r","label":"Sources Sought"},"notice_id":"71543a245e484eacb7ab2b6b45b3c1f5","provenance":{"extract":{"url":"https://s3.amazonaws.com/falextracts/Contract%20Opportunities/Archived%20Data/FY2024_archived_opportunities.csv","etag":"\"d582488fe153a9f11bf629913d176ffc-137\"","fetched_at":"2026-09-16T19:07:39.720164Z","row_sha256":"23851659146782bd54ba1f5b8adbaa22b6293444283e8bdf29f2e8d7de82dfd4","last_modified":"2026-09-13T14:47:40Z"},"updated_at":"2026-09-16T19:07:39.720164Z","first_seen_at":"2026-09-16T19:07:39.720164Z"},"description":{"text":"Announcement Type: Special Notice Classification Code: 6695 Announcement Number: NB684070-24-02660 (NOI) Subject: Notice of Intent to Noncompetitively Acquire an Attocube Laser Fiber Interferometer Notice of Intent to Noncompetitively Acquire One (1) Attocube Three Axis Laser Fiber Interferometer The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), Mass and Force Group, has a need to obtain one (1) Attocube Three Axis Laser Fiber Interferometer for a liquid dispensing electrostatic force balance to disseminate mass less than 1 gram and force less than 10 millinewtons. The purchase is required for the TrueBq IMS project’s final year and is necessary to meet near term project deliverables for uncertainty in liquid mass. This notice is not a request for a quotation. A solicitation document will not be issued, and quotations will not be requested. This acquisition is being conducted under the authority of FAR 13.106-1(b) via FAR 13.106-1(b). The North American Industry Classification System (NAICS) code for this acquisition is 334516, Analytical Laboratory Instrument Manufacturing. The purpose of this solicitation is to obtain one (1) Attocube Laser Fiber Interferometer for the TrueBq IMS project. The Mass and Force Group requires a 3-axis fiber interferometer for the next generation NIST Electrostatic Force Balance (EFB), in order to measure the mass of liquid samples for the TrueBq IMS project, which focuses on developing Decay Energy Spectrometery (DES) of quantitatively prepared sources using ultra-sensitive, cryogenic, Transition Edge Sensors (TESs). The current interferometer is lacking key capabilities (analog output and vibrometry capabilities) which are required, in addition to overall the capability of the currently used interferometer. After thorough evaluation, it has been determined that a new 3-axis fiber interferometer from the manufacturer, Attocube Systems AG, is essential for several reasons: 1. Compatibility and Continuity: The new hardware must be compatible with the existing custom Electrostatic Force Balance (EFB) control hardware necessary to read signals from an interferometer digitally and instantiate a position control loop for measurement protocols developed for the existing prototype instrument to provide traceability to small mass and force measurements using established methods. This requires both an AquadB and High-Speed Serial (HSSL) displacement encoding. The vendor (Attocube, Inc.) has proprietary hardware for the HSSL encoder that is required for direct compatibility with the established measurement protocols. Because the vendor's hardware has been verified to provide SI-Traceability for mass measurement, switching to a different interferometer system would require redesign, refabrication and reprogramming of software for the existing EFB, the SI-Tracebility of which would then have to be re-verified. This would be extremely costly to the Government, with an estimate of more than $300,000.00 and require the work of a minimum of one (1) FTE and delay the current project deliverables past the project end timeframe, which would be detrimental to NIST’s mission. NIST conducted market research in May 2024 by internet searches, discussions with sources, and sources sought posting. Sources sought NB684070-24-02660 was posted from July 3, 2024 to July 17, 2024 with no responses. The results of that market research revealed that only Attocube Systems AG, EGLFINGER WEG 2, HAAR, 85540 DEU; UEI: GUM6Q15FDTG4 appears to be capable of meeting NIST’s requirements. However, any sources that believe they are capable of meeting NIST’s minimum requirements are encouraged to respond to this notice by the response date to provide the following information at a minimum: Company Unique Entity Identifier number in https://sam.gov; details about what your company is capable of providing that meets or exceeds NIST’s minimum requirements; whether your company is an authorized reseller of the product or service being cited and evidence of such authorization; and any other information that can help NIST determine whether this requirement may be competitively satisfied.","origin":"extract"},"notice_type":{"code":"s","label":"Special Notice"},"schema_version":1,"solicitation_number":"NB684070-24-02660","place_of_performance":{"zip":"20899","city":{"name":"Gaithersburg"},"state":{"code":"MD"},"country":{"code":"USA"}},"product_service_code":"6695"}],"due_at":"2024-07-17T15:00:00Z","due_date":"2024-07-17","closes_at":"2024-07-17T15:00:00Z","awardable":false,"dept_key":"d-013","dept_name":"COMMERCE, DEPARTMENT OF","sub_key":"s-1341","sub_name":"NATIONAL INSTITUTE OF STANDARDS AND TECHNOLOGY","office_key":"o-1333ND","office_name":"DEPT OF COMMERCE NIST","state":"MD","county":"24031","county_name":"Montgomery County","city":"2431175","city_name":"Gaithersburg","country":"USA","winner_key":null,"amount":null,"linked_awards":0,"cancelled":false,"archived":false,"updated_at":"2026-09-16T21:18:12.857524Z","principal_notice_id":"71543a245e484eacb7ab2b6b45b3c1f5","description":{"text":"Announcement Type: Special Notice Classification Code: 6695 Announcement Number: NB684070-24-02660 (NOI) Subject: Notice of Intent to Noncompetitively Acquire an Attocube Laser Fiber Interferometer Notice of Intent to Noncompetitively Acquire One (1) Attocube Three Axis Laser Fiber Interferometer The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), Mass and Force Group, has a need to obtain one (1) Attocube Three Axis Laser Fiber Interferometer for a liquid dispensing electrostatic force balance to disseminate mass less than 1 gram and force less than 10 millinewtons. The purchase is required for the TrueBq IMS project’s final year and is necessary to meet near term project deliverables for uncertainty in liquid mass. This notice is not a request for a quotation. A solicitation document will not be issued, and quotations will not be requested. This acquisition is being conducted under the authority of FAR 13.106-1(b) via FAR 13.106-1(b). The North American Industry Classification System (NAICS) code for this acquisition is 334516, Analytical Laboratory Instrument Manufacturing. The purpose of this solicitation is to obtain one (1) Attocube Laser Fiber Interferometer for the TrueBq IMS project. The Mass and Force Group requires a 3-axis fiber interferometer for the next generation NIST Electrostatic Force Balance (EFB), in order to measure the mass of liquid samples for the TrueBq IMS project, which focuses on developing Decay Energy Spectrometery (DES) of quantitatively prepared sources using ultra-sensitive, cryogenic, Transition Edge Sensors (TESs). The current interferometer is lacking key capabilities (analog output and vibrometry capabilities) which are required, in addition to overall the capability of the currently used interferometer. After thorough evaluation, it has been determined that a new 3-axis fiber interferometer from the manufacturer, Attocube Systems AG, is essential for several reasons: 1. Compatibility and Continuity: The new hardware must be compatible with the existing custom Electrostatic Force Balance (EFB) control hardware necessary to read signals from an interferometer digitally and instantiate a position control loop for measurement protocols developed for the existing prototype instrument to provide traceability to small mass and force measurements using established methods. This requires both an AquadB and High-Speed Serial (HSSL) displacement encoding. The vendor (Attocube, Inc.) has proprietary hardware for the HSSL encoder that is required for direct compatibility with the established measurement protocols. Because the vendor's hardware has been verified to provide SI-Traceability for mass measurement, switching to a different interferometer system would require redesign, refabrication and reprogramming of software for the existing EFB, the SI-Tracebility of which would then have to be re-verified. This would be extremely costly to the Government, with an estimate of more than $300,000.00 and require the work of a minimum of one (1) FTE and delay the current project deliverables past the project end timeframe, which would be detrimental to NIST’s mission. NIST conducted market research in May 2024 by internet searches, discussions with sources, and sources sought posting. Sources sought NB684070-24-02660 was posted from July 3, 2024 to July 17, 2024 with no responses. The results of that market research revealed that only Attocube Systems AG, EGLFINGER WEG 2, HAAR, 85540 DEU; UEI: GUM6Q15FDTG4 appears to be capable of meeting NIST’s requirements. However, any sources that believe they are capable of meeting NIST’s minimum requirements are encouraged to respond to this notice by the response date to provide the following information at a minimum: Company Unique Entity Identifier number in https://sam.gov; details about what your company is capable of providing that meets or exceeds NIST’s minimum requirements; whether your company is an authorized reseller of the product or service being cited and evidence of such authorization; and any other information that can help NIST determine whether this requirement may be competitively satisfied.","html":null,"origin":"extract"},"contacts":[{"name":"Cielo 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