October 1, 2004 – Veeco Instruments Inc. and The Dow Chemical Co. have received $6.6 million in funding from the US Commerce Department’s National Institute of Standards and Technology Advanced Technology Program for a three-year project to develop a quantitative nano-mechanical measurement instrument.

Veeco and Dow’s proposal was one of 32 selected for award funding from a total of 870 proposals following a rigorous peer-reviewed selection process. Veeco and Dow propose to jointly develop and validate a platform for high speed, high bandwidth, quantitative nano-mechanical measurements (QNM) on length scales smaller than 50nm, on a wide range of materials.

Successful completion of this proposal would lead to the creation of a new measurement platform enabling the development of nanomaterials. The QNM will be developed at Veeco. The platform will be based on recently demonstrated advancements in atomic force microscopy.

“The motivation for this project is to remove a fundamental limitation in the development of nanomaterials. Nanomaterials are forecasted to be a multi-billion dollar industry, but material scientists currently lack the ability to accurately and quickly map the mechanical properties of many materials on the nanoscale. Our program will provide a solution,” commented Anthony Martinez, Senior VP, GM, Veeco Metrology.