BOULDER - AlphaSniffer LLC, a Boulder-based chemical and biohazard detection company, received a patent on its technology.

AlphaSniffer's method of using optical sensors to detect viruses, bacteria, proteins and other very small particles is called "Polarization based interferometric detector," and it received U.S. Patent 7,233,396.

The inventors are John Hall, Viatcheslav Petropavlovskikh and Oyvind Nilsen. Primary inventor Hall, a 2005 Nobel Laureate in physics, is a scientist emeritus of the National Institute of Standards and Technology and fellow of JILA, a joint research institution of NIST and the University of Colorado in Boulder. Petropavlovskikh is director of research and development, and Nilsen is a mechanical engineer at the company.

Serial entrepreneur Misha Plam, the company's president and chief executive officer, launched AlphaSniffer in 2003.

Since its inception, the company has raised $2.4 million in angel funding, is on target to raise $10 million in venture capital this year and hopes to have its first beta customers by the end of 2007.

The company has raised $320,000 in Phase I Small Business Innovation Research grants and is awaiting response on two Phase II grants worth $600,000 and several more Phase I applications.

In March, AlphaSniffer received a supplemental grant of $35,287 from the National Institutes of Health.