W5170124C0167

Small Business Innovation Research Program (SBIR) Phase II

Sustainable Molecular Data Storage

The military supply chain is vulnerable to counterfeit materials which can compromise the warfighter's safety. In October 2022, almost 30,000 pieces of counterfeit gear were sold to the military, including non-flame resistant hoods and jackets that were not resistant to enemy night vision goggles. In October of 2023, the vulnerability of the aviation supply chain was exposed when thousands of counterfeit jet engine parts were identified in Boeing and Airbus planes across the globe, including both commercial and military aircraft. These and other counterfeit parts are being tied to 737 Max crashes that occurred several years ago and took the lives of more than 300 people. The security of the military supply chain is about much more than brand protection, and ATOMICS' technology can provide authentication and track and trace capabilities of any object with unprecedented security. ATOMICS' technology can store digital binary data in small molecule mixtures in a highly compact, low-power, and durable manner, and being able to store data in small molecules opens the ability to hide information at the smallest of scales. The feasibility of storing data in small molecules has been demonstrated in a laboratory setting using a liquid handling device that dispenses small droplets of molecules onto a surface in an array-like pattern and a mass spectrometer that is able to read the data stored in these arrays. We demonstrated that we can store and retrieve megabytes of information in small molecules with 100% recovery of our data which included image and text files. These feasibility studies demonstrated that our approach is generalizable to nearly any molecules by encoding in the presence or absence of each molecule, where the presence indicates a binary value of 1, and the absence indicates the binary value of 0. This demonstrated ability to store data in small molecules enables us to create molecular QR codes that can be printed onto the surface of any object that contain data including, but not limited to, date, time, and location of manufacturing. To read the data, chemical analysis can be performed, and the spectra can be interpreted using a machine learning algorithm to obtain authenticity results and the data that was encoded for tracking purposes. Importantly, these molecular QR codes can be invisible and encrypted for added layers of data security, and this enables the secure authentication and track and trace of any objects in the supply chain. To scale our technology in this DP2 effort, ATOMICS proposes building a writing device based on 3D printing technologies and using optical chemical analysis rather than mass spectrometry to increase the speed of writing and reading data by 100 times to achieve relevant speeds for supply chain throughput. ATOMICS' counterfeit detection product does not require hardware modifications for Army-specific use and can therefore be used in the same form factor in commercial and Army applications.

The goal of phase II is to continue the R&D efforts initiated in Phase I. Funding is based on the results achieved in Phase I and the scientific and technical merit and commercial potential of the project proposed in Phase II.

A234-P015

A2D-1361

23.4

Jesse Roberts