SOLICITATION NOTICE
66 -- Instruments and Laboratory Equipment
- Notice Date
- 8/26/2003
- Notice Type
- Solicitation Notice
- Contracting Office
- Department of Health and Human Services, National Institutes of Health, National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute, Contracts Operations Branch 6701 Rockledge Dr RKL2/6100 MSC 7902, Bethesda, MD, 20892-7902
- ZIP Code
- 20892-7902
- Solicitation Number
- NHLBI-PS-2003-123
- Response Due
- 9/10/2003
- Archive Date
- 9/25/2003
- Point of Contact
- Cecilia Morales, Purchasing Agent, Phone (301) 435-0366, Fax (301) 480-3345,
- E-Mail Address
-
cm71f@nih.gov
- Description
- This is a combined synopsis/solicitation for commercial items, prepared in accordance with the format in FAR subpart 12.6, as supplemented with additional information included in this notice. This announcement constitutes the only solicitation; proposals are being requested and a written solicitation will not be issued. The soliciatation number is NHLBI-PS-2003-123, and is issued as a Request For Proposal (RFP). The solicitation/contract will include all applicable provisions and clauses in effect through Federal Acquisition Circular 2001-14. The North American Industry classification (NAICS) Code is 339111 and the Size Standard 500 employees are used for this requirement. There are no small business set-aside restrictions for this requirement. This acquisition is being conducted under simplified acquisition procedures. The National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute (NHLBI) for the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) intends to purchase one (1) each, TECNAI 12 BIOTWIN TRANSMISION ELECTRON MICROSCOPE, PART #FP5016/40SysA System, manufactured by FEI, Building AAE, Post Office Box 218, 5600 MD Eindhoven, The Netherlands. The requirements and specifications of the Transmission Electron Microscope are as follows: The contractor must provide a transmission electron microscope system that can be operated at acceleration voltages from 20 kV to 120kV. The microscope system must be digitally controlled in it?s entirety. This statement shall be understood by the vendor to mean that there shall be no analog control of the lenses, vacuum system etc. Instead, these and all other system sub components shall all be controlled directly by a software service running on a single PC, preferable running Windows 2000. Communication to the different operating parts of the microscope must be done through high speed PC networking communication. This software service will remember individual operators upon login and instantaneously reset the microscope system to the operator?s last alignment when this operator logs into the system. The system must do this without the need to press recall buttons, alignment recalls, insert disc that contains individual user settings, etc. The microscope system must have a digital chart of the whole operating system available for digital troubleshooting by a service engineer on-site or remotely, where the service engineer can access vacuum levels, microscope lens values, lens drivers and control button tests for remote diagnostics/repair. A 2000 line CCD Camera with software and a PC type image data server with CDRW and Ethernet connection to a LAN will be utilized to capture and store digital images. The system must be able to connect to a user provided second monitor [or flat panel display] for simultaneous live classroom viewing of the microscope PC display on the second monitor. The system must also be capable of sending a TV rate image to a remote TV monitor. There must also be an optional remote imaging capability [for future purchase] where a second monitor/PC/control module can be connected to the Tecnai via a LAN. The system must provide an extremely high level of embedding of the third party accessories that are fitted to the system. Digital camera?s (MSC), Energy filters (GIF or EELS), X-ray detectors (EDS), Electron Energy Loss detectors (PEELS). The system must be able to obtain TEM images, energy filtered TEM images from the single user interface using embedded GIF/EELS control software, or STEM images and third party devices. GENERAL CAPABILITIES: Must be Analytical electron microscope with total operator control and convenience, ?Intelligent? microprocessor under industry-standard Microsoft Windows 2000 operating system, controlling all modes of operation/sub-routines; Must include control and memory of all optical and alignment parameters. Use of fibre optics coupling to prevent outside electrical interference; It must be possible for the microscope to interact with other Microsoft Windows 2000 applications; There must be network access for importing and exporting files from and to network systems; It must be possible to print images and text using any Microsoft Windows 2000 compatible printer; The instrument must fulfill ergonomic criteria in order to reduce the chance of repetitive strain injury; the system must have one single compatible platform that allows integrated control of TEM, STEM modes, energy filters, EDS detectors and TV rate or CCD cameras; there must be a set of knobs and buttons to which the user can assign functions and short-cuts; the microscope must be capable of operating to full specifications at ambient temperatures between 10 and 30 degrees C and relative humidity up to 80%. SPECIMEN STAGE: Eucentric tilt side-entry specimen stage with +/-80 degrees tilt; Tilt axis to intersect optical axis midway between polepieces; Motorised and computer control of all 5 axes (XYZab) including by external computer; Read out and display of all 5 axes down to 0.1 ?m and 0.1 degree accuracy; unlimited storage and recall of two-dimensional or five-dimensional positions, recall accuracy below 0.3 ?m and 0.5 degrees; Specimen drift rate must be < 1 nm/min (0.5 nm/min attainable); the range of Z movement must be at least 0.75 mm; free floating cryo-transfer holder tip must have no contact (thermal leak) inside the microscope; Automatic Boundary Check System must check 800 times per second that no part of the specimen holder damages any polepieces, detectors or aperture rods inside the microscope; the double tilt specimen holder must have a specimen fixing mechanism that prevents damage to brittle specimens (Soft Loc); The speed of specimen movement must be user selectable and depend on microscope magnification and usage of a TV camera; the XY position must be measured directly at the specimen rod and not in front of the motors in order to achieve sufficient accuracy; the smallest mechanical shift in X and Y must not be more than two nanometers; a wide range of specimen holders must be currently available including one for reproducibly reinserting the specimen grid; specimen insertion must be through an automatic pre-pumped airlock with the high tension and emitter remaining on during specimen exchange; specimen insertion must be achievable within 15 seconds; prolonged pumping of the irlock must be possible without any possibility of back-streaming from the rotary pump introducing contamination; VACUUM SYSTEM: A clean dry vacuum <2.7 x 10 -5 Pa must be maintained in the specimen area with partial pressures of hydrocarbons <4 x 10 -8Pa and of water vapour <8 x 10 -6Pa; spacimen area, gun area and microscope column down to the final projector lens must be pumped by an oil-free ion-getter pump (IGP) and not by an oil diffusion pump; there must be a separate IGP pumping the upper and lower column liner tubes; it must be possible to add a turbo-molecular pump for oil-free pre-pumping of the column, gun and airlock; it must be possible to maintain a pressure difference of 10 000x between plate camera and microscope column; vacuum measurement and intelligent vacuum control is required; specimen airlock pumping time to be user selectable, the default being 10 seconds. ELECTRON SOURCE: Accelerating voltages:20, 40, 60, 80, 100 and 120 kV (Continuous control option with 9 selectable step sizes from 50V to 20kV/step); the emission current range must be up to 100 microamperes; tungsten and LaB6 emitters must be possible without modifying vacuum system; the filament-Wehnelt distance must be continuously pre-adjustable to allow setting up for long life or high brightness or any optimum value; possibility to limit the filament heating current to prevent over-heating, the system administrator may block this for basic users; automatic warm \-up procedure for LaB6 filaments to prevent premature failure; delay time to be adjustable by the system administrator. ILLUMINATION SYSTEM: Four illumination lenses: condensers 1 & 2, mini-condenser & objective-condenser; the second condenser aperture holder must accept four low-background apertures for reducing EDS background, sideways retraction required; Illumination control for constant intensity with magnification change or for fixed maximum intensity. Unrestricted control must also be possible. The minimum TEM mode spot size with the specimen eucentric must be 4 nm (LaV6) and 8 nm (W). OBJECTIVE LENS: The objective lens must provide high contrast images from unstained specimens. It must permit large specimen tilt angles without change of pole pieces or specimen position; in all operating modes, the specimen must be eucentric and at the optical and mechanical centre of the symmetrical lens; lens parameters in both TEM and STEM as follows: f = 6.1 mm, Cs = 6.3 mm, Cc = 5.0 mm. Electrical stability 2 ppm per min. Smallest focal step 3nm. Residual astigmatism ,0.75 ?m. Guaranteed resolution 0.34 nm line, 0.49 nm point; the focus step size must be automatically adjusted for the magnification in use with manual override being possible; objective lens excitation must be CONSTANT from 1300x to 370 000x to minimize thermal changes in the specimen area and to avoid change of astigmatism; the objective aperture holder must accept four standard apertures which can be selected by a click-stop mechanism, sideways retraction required. IMAGING SYSTEM: The imaging system must consist of five lenses: objective, diffraction, intermediate, 1st projector and 2nd projector. The magnification range must be from 20x (entire grid visible on screen) to 370 000x controlled from a single knob; radial and spiral distortion must each be <1.5% over 50 mm diameter on the plate. Reproducibility of magnification must be <1.5%; to observe a large field of view both in imaging and diffraction and to observe a diffraction pattern with a wide range of intensity of spots, the main viewing screen must be 160 mm diameter with fully separate fine grain focusing screen, two viewing windows 210 mm and 145 mm diameter are required; high quality hinged binoculars must be provided for observing the image on the focusing screen, magnification must be 12x, exit pupil must be >4.5 mm; the magnification range must be rotation-free. DIFFRACTION: There must be a wide range of camera lengths in both the SA and the low angle modes, The diffraction pattern must not rotate when changing camera length; the selected area aperture holder must accept four standard 3 mm apertures which can be selected by a click-stop mechanism. Sideways retraction required; dark field beam tilt must be by choice of X-Y or radius and angle controls. Calibrated bean tilt parameters must be displayed on the data screen; unlimited programmable memories for dark-field settings; convergent beam diffraction patterns must be obtainable from illuminated areas down to <4nm with specimen eucentric (8nm with W) PHOTOGRAPHY ON PLATES: There must be an automatic screen lifting mechanism; it must be possible to record images on plates or cut film; it must be possible to load 56 cut-film holders t once into the microscope; the camera control must be fully electronic, automatic exposure (0.02 - 99s) on full field of view or selected area and timer or manual exposure control; it must be possible to make automatic through-focus series of photographs, with the operator specifying the number of exposures and the focus increment; it must be possible to print a micron bar, a user code, an exposure number, the date and at least 96 freely selected characters of text onto each film exposure; it must be possible to exchange plates without switching off the high tension or the emitter. CCD-CAMERAS: A 2000 line CCD cameras mounted in the wide angle camera ports. A server connected to the TEM computer for digital image storage. STEM MODE Capability: The scanning optics must produce a stationary diffraction pattern in the back focal plane of the objective lens under all conditions. This must be capable of being imaged on the transmission detectors at a wide range of camera lengths; simultaneous bright-field and dark-field imaging must be possible; the scan coils must be independent from the alignment coils to allow precise positioning of small analytical spots; magnification must be from 50x to 300 000x (+ 8x zoom); rage of SA diffraction camera lengths in HMS mode from 68 mm to 13500 mm; guaranteed resolution must be 1.0 nm in scanning transmission images; there must be a viewing mode (fast) and a high resolution mode (slow).; there must be a digital scan generator with 12-bit scan resolution (4096 x 4096 pixels), a scan rate of 1 (5) MHz and dwell times per pixel from 1 ?sec to 40 msec, there must be full frame, selected area and line scan modes; detectors must be available for bright-field and dark-field imaging, signal acquisition must be digital (12-bit resolution) and there must be provision for up to 8 analog input channels; hard copy output of images must be possible using dye-sublimation printers and any other Microsoft Windows NT compatible printer; the image of the focused spot and the portion of the specimen imaged in the spot must be simultaneously in focus on the screen; all images displayed on the viewing monitor must be automatically calibrated (no user input); there must be a videoscope function; there must be a facility to measure, on-line, accurately, distances, angles and ratios in all scanning images; display processing, brightness/contrast, gamma histogram equalization must all be possible; image pan, scroll and zoom must all be possible; there must be automatic contrast and brightness control; data export to spreadsheets for user defined processing must be possible. ENERGY DISPERSIVE X-RAY ANALYSIS Capability: Precautions mut be taken to reduce X-ray background: there must be low-background specimen holders available, there must be suitable collimation in the illumination system and the X-ray detector must not be mounted at >45 degrees) so that X-ray arising from material below the specimen can enter it; the X-ray detector must be mounted at the highest possible angle (but <45 degrees) with respect to the specimen surface and perpendicular to the eucentric axis. It must subtend a solid angle of 0.4 steradians., collimation must be to the eucentric point; the X-ray detector must be protected by an automatic shutter or by EDS detector retraction against the harmful effects of backscattered electrons in low magnification modes; windows NT based EDS analytical software must be available; it must be possible to store raw spectral data for each beam position for EDS data post-processing; it must be possible simultaneously to carry out EDS and EELS spectrum imaging; it must be possible to export data to spreadsheets for user-defined processing. ELECTRON ENERGY LOSS SPECTROSCOPY AND IMAGING Capability: It must be possible to mount a post-column energy filter in an ergonomically sound way; the magnification range and camera length range must be optimised for large field of view in energy filtered imaging (at least 10 ?m) and energy filtered diffraction analysis using the post-column filter; HT drift must be less than 8 ppm/min to allow for quantitative elemental mapping by energy filtered imaging; there must be one single graphical user interface (GUI) for controlling TEM/STEM and the post-column filter; energy filtered images and diffraction patterns must always be calibrated; energy tuning must be automatic; the slit must be computer controlled and calibrated in eV. Insertion and removal must be pneumatic; there must be automatic zero-loss centring; software must be available for electron energy loss functionality, data acquisition and data display; there must be a drift tube to allow different parts of the spectrum without realigning the filter; it must be possible to carry out high resolution electron energy loss spectroscopy at low and high energy losses; there must be easy and calibrated switching between different energy dispersions; the monitor display must show at least 1000 eV of the spectrum at once; it must be possible to store raw spectral data for each beam position for post-processing after finishing experiments. The provisions of FAR Clause 52.212-1, Instructions to Offeror-Commercial Items, applies to this acquisition. The provisions of FAR Clause 52.212-2, Evaluation - Commercial Items is applicable to this acquisition. The contractors must submit written descriptive literature, an itemized price list and warranties of the product quoted. The evaluation procedure is based upon the descriptive literature of the system. The award will be made to the lowest priced, technically acceptable quote meeting the Government requirements. The Government intends to evaluate offers and award a contract without discussions with contractors. Therefore the initial offer must contain the offerors best terms from a technical and price standpoint. However, the Government reserves the right to conduct discussions if later determined by the Contracting Officer to be necessary. The Government may reject any or all offers if such action and waive informalities and minor irregularities in offers received. The offeror must include a completed copy of the provision of FAR Clause 52.212-3, Offeror Representations and Certifications - Commercial Items with its offer. The provisions of FAR Clause 52.212-4, Contract Terms and Conditions - Commercial Items, applies to this acquisition. The addenda to the clause read as follows: The offeror must include in their quotation, the unit price, the list price, shipping and handling costs, the delivery period after contract award, the prompt payment discount terms, the F.O.B. Point (Destination or Origin), the Dun & Bradstreet Number (DUNS), the Taxpayer Identification Number (TIN), and the certification of business size. The Far Clause 52.212-5, Contract Terms and Conditions Required to Implement Statutes or Executive Orders - Commercial Items - Deviation for Simplified Acquisitions, applies to this acquisition. The clauses are available in full text at http://WWW.arnet.gov/far. Interested vendors capable of furnishing the government with the item specified in this synopsis should submit two (2) copies of a quotation to the below address. The quotation must reference solicitation number NHLBI-PS-2003-123. The Government intends to award a contract by September 15, 2002. All responsible sources may submit a quotation, which if timely received, shall be considered by the agency. Quotations must be submitted in writing to the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute, Contracts Operations Branch, Procurement Section, 6701 Rockledge Drive, Suite 6149, Bethesda, MD 20814-7902, Attention: Ms. Cecilia Morales. Fax quotations will only be accepted if dated and signed by an authorized company representative.
- Record
- SN00412499-W 20030828/030827074307 (fbodaily.com)
- Source
-
FedBizOpps.gov Link to This Notice
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