Rice University, et. al; Notice of Decision on Applicationfor Duty-Free Entry of Scientific Instruments

This is a decision pursuant to Section 6(c) of the Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Materials Importation Act of 1966 (Pub. L. 89-651, as amended by Pub. L. 106-36; 80 Stat. 897; 15 CFR part 301). On November 25, 2020, the Department of Commerce published a notice in the Federal Register requesting public comment on whether instruments of equivalent scientific value, for the purposes for which the instruments identified in the docket(s) below are intended to be used, are being manufactured in the United States. See Application(s) for Duty-Free Entry of Scientific Instruments, 85 FR 75302-03, November 25, 2020 (Notice). We received no public comments.

Docket Number: 20-008. Applicant: Rice University, 6100 Main Street, Houston, TX 77005. Instrument: Signal Acquisition ASCI. Manufacturer: LiMicro, China. Intended Use: See Notice at 85 FR 75302-03, November 25, 2020. Comments: None received. Decision: Approved. We know of no instruments of equivalent scientific value to the foreign instruments described below, for such purposes as this is intended to be used, that were being manufactured in the United States at the time of order. Reasons: According to the applicant, the instrument will be used to study and investigate in-vivo large-scale, high-density, long-term, neutral recording to integrate the signal acquisition instrument that it plans to purchase with its custom developed ultra-flexible nano electronic thread (NET) microelectrodes as a neural recording system to monitor chronic neural signals in freely behaving animals. The applicant also plans to investigate the formation of connections between various brain regions and the evolution of the neutral connections over extended periods. This large-scale, high-density, long-term neural recording study has the potential to help understand the fundamental mechanisms of neural circuitry and explore treatments for neurological conditions.

Docket Number: 20-009. Applicant: University of Chicago, Chemistry E005A, 929 E 57th Street (loading docket behind 5741 S Drexel Avenue), Chicago, IL 60637. Instrument: White Dwarf Optimal Parametric Amplifier System (OPCPA). Manufacturer: Class 5 Photonics, GmbH, Germany. Intended Use: According to the applicant, the instrument will be used to study and determine how the local electronic structure of nanostructured materials is related to their morphology, and directly measure the electronic transitions at buried interfaces in materials, controlling anisotropic charge transport via photoinduced strain effects, manipulating energy transfer in polaritonic systems. The OPCPA is a work-horse laser system for simultaneous use with multiple experiments. The experiments to be conducted involve time-resolved photoemission microscopy of both occupied and unoccupied electronic structure of materials, heterodyned electronic sum-frequency-generation spectroscopy, transient absorption spectroscopy.