Roadmapping: A Challenge and (we hope) a Solution

As we see it, one of the fundamental difficulties with constructing a technology roadmap for QCL sensors systems is that technology changes in unpredictable ways. This means it is challenging to define what exactly the components will look like in QCL sensors in ten years, because in ten years the detectors or optics or systems may resemble something which we would not have predicted today.

We therefore construct our roadmap as a goal-oriented plan. We know what the test sensors looked like in all the Thrust 5 (Applications and Testbeds) Projects. We also have spoken extensively with Claire Gmachl and a number of researchers and industry partners within MIRTHE, and they have expressed their goals for QCL development. Therefore our main goals are to identify what each device would look like for each application, and determine what its product specifications would be. As MIRTHE has hopes for QCL sensing in industrial processing, environmental monitoring, and homeland security, there are many unique devices which must be characterized, as, for example, a networked methane sensor to be deployed on a glacier would look very different from a device used in a doctor’s office used to measure exhaled ammonia. By knowing what these devices should look like and what their characteristics should be, we will present an endpoint for joint efforts of the MIRTHE Center’s research and the development by the Industry Partners. From there, we will do our best to “fill-in-the-blanks,” and try to identify the technical developments needed to arrive at the endpoint, and identify any intermediate products which could have commercial or research applications.