The  Shanghai Institute of Technical Physics (SITP) of the Chinese Academy of Sciences and the Rutherford Appleton Laboratory (RAL) of UK signed a cooperation agreement in Shanghai on June 1.
The cooperation should be attributed to the step filter（also called integrated filter）, firstly developed by National Laboratory for Infrared Physics of SITP in 2003.
A step filter is a new type of miniature wavelength-division device, a key part in a miniature spectrometer (imaging) instrument. Such a device could be designed to fully match with the detector array through photolithography, because of which the Space Science and Technology Department at RAL expressed their willingness to work with SITP to develop the technology and advance its application in space science.
According to the agreement, SITP possesses an independent intellectual property right of the technology in the cooperation, which would  both promote the application of the step filter in space science and promote SITP’s international reputation.