Daylight Solutions Inc. of Poway, Calif., has received a Phase 1 award from the US Department of Energy. It will build a high-power, widely tunable, mid-infrared laser based on quantum cascade materials and will develop a method to tune a solid-state laser so that many chemicals may be detected with a single instrument. Miniaturized and field-ready, the device will detect airborne chemicals associated with pollution and nuclear proliferation.