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Mar. 6, 2006 — JDSU (Nasdaq: JDSU) introduced three new optical communications products under its Agile Optical Network (AON) strategy, which is intended to address the need for more agile, dynamically reconfigurable networks for consumer and business services.

The introductions included the ES VOA series, a series of electrostatic, MEMS-based variable optical attenuators for a cost-effective means of power control in AON. The new attenuators are designed for low wavelength dependent loss, small form factor packaging and high reliability.

The other products introduced include a pair of modulators and a modular optical protection switch circuit pack.

Mar. 3, 2006 – NeoPhotonics announced a planar lightwave circuit (PLC) triplexer module in a standard 2 x 2-inch package. Triplexer transceiver modules, located in customer equipment known as optical network terminals, are components of “fiber-to-the-home” networks.

NeoPhotonics said in a news release that the company believes achieving a standard form factor will provide network equipment manufacturers a simpler “plug and play” design process.

Like other triplexers, the NeoPhotonics PT8815 features a digital transmitter for signal transmission at 1310 nm upstream, a digital receiver for downstream reception at 1490 nm, and an analog receiver for video overlay at 1550 nm.

While conventional triplexers feature discrete components, the PT8815 integrates transmitter, receiver and filter functions into a single PLC chip, potentially reducing production costs in high volume.

Mar. 2, 2006 – Dalsa Corp., a semiconductor and electronics company and MEMS foundry, announced that it has received two contracts totaling $2.3 million from customers in the professional imaging and life sciences end markets.

The first contract is for the development and delivery of a new high performance image sensor chip for use in professional imaging. The contract consists of both the development and follow-on production of the image sensor and has the potential for subsequent follow-on orders. The development is expected to be completed over the next nine months.

The second contract is for the development of a unique image sensor chip used in life sciences imaging. The contract, which has the potential for follow-on production orders, is expected to be completed over the next 16 months. This is the third custom contract of its kind in the past seven months that Dalsa has received from customers in the life sciences imaging end market.

Mar. 2, 2006 – Lumera Corp. (Nasdaq: LMRA), an emerging developer of a variety of nanotechnologies, announced that Sanjiv Sam Gambhir has joined its board of directors.

Since 2003, Gambhir has served concurrently as professor of the departments of radiology and bioengineering and division chief of nuclear medicine division at Stanford University School of Medicine as well as director of the molecular imaging program.

Gambhir’s focus is on cancer biology and multimodality molecular imaging. In particular, his research is aimed at developing imaging assays to monitor fundamental cellular events in living subjects.

Mar. 2, 2006 — Veeco Instruments Inc. (Nasdaq: VECO), a supplier of instrumentation to the nanoscience community, announced that its recently introduced BioScope II, an atomic force microscope designed to facilitate advanced bioscience research, has been selected for purchase by the Institute Pasteur de Lille.

The Institute Pasteur de Lille is a private, non-profit organization dedicated to the prevention and treatment of disease through research, education and public health activities, and is a member of the international network of the Pasteur Institutes which has campuses in Lille and Montpellier, France.

In addition, Veeco said it will establish a life sciences lab in the Institute’s facility, and will provide bio-applications scientists and other technology resources to the Institute.

Mar. 2, 2006 — Lightconnect, a supplier of MEMS optical components, announced a new variable optical attenuator with polarization maintaining fiber for power control and receiver protection in next generation optical networks.

The company says its new FVOA5200 has good reliability and uses the same compact package as that of the Lightconnect FVOA5000, which passed over 5000 hours of damp heat testing.

The VOA is available with Panda 250 micron, Panda 400 micron fiber or similar fiber. It has a dynamic range greater than 50dB (typical), with either normally bright or dark configurations and it consumes less than 0.5 mW of electrical power, according to a Lightconnect release.


Clayton Teague
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Last fall, Clayton Teague sat under fire as members of Congress peppered him with questions about nanotechnology’s potential for a big oops: nano-based materials or products that could harm people or the environment. As director of the National Nanotechnology Coordination Office, Teague works with more than 20 agencies that participate in the National Nanotechnology Initiative to ensure communication and collaboration among them.

He’s also the face of nano in Washington, D.C., and abroad. When concerns arise about the adequacy of funding for research on nano’s adverse effects, lawmakers turn to him for answers. When international committees want a representative for global cooperation on nano, they tap his shoulder. Teague is in demand – a lot, as he demonstrates in this exchange with Small Times’ Candace Stuart.

Q: What are the most pressing issues facing the National Nanotechnology Coordination Office in 2006?

One is our expectation of the delivery of the assessment report (on how we can improve the National Nanotechnology Initiative) from the National Academies. That’s supposed to be coming up sometime in the spring. What the report says and how we’ll respond will be at the forefront of what we do.

Q: Is this a follow-up to the President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology report that came out last May?

The law requires both an assessment by PCAST and an assessment by the National Academies. There were a number of specific requests in the law that the academies were to address (such as) how we’re doing internationally, how we’re doing in technology transfer.

Q: What are you working on now?

We are working very closely with all the agencies to prepare the next supplement to the president’s 2007 budget, which will lay out the plan that the NNI and participating agencies have for the year 2007.

We laid out a strategic plan about a year ago (including) a very important vision statement with four goals, one of which is the responsible development of nanotechnology. The next step in further refining the strategic plan is to lay out research targets.

Over the next six to eight months that’s going to be a major effort. We hope to identify some very specific targets. Just to give you some examples, one that the NIH (National Institutes of Health) has identified is the $100 genome. The intent is to have all the instrumentation, validation and everything in place so that a person could walk into a clinic with a sample of blood or other sources of DNA, and for $100 walk out with a complete layout of their DNA.

Q: That’s using nanotechnology to accelerate this analysis?

Yes, to use nanoscale sensors, nanotechnology-based instrumentation, to provide this kind of service. Another potential example is to have nanotechnology-based solar cells or photovoltaic cells that are some number of times more efficient than current solar cells and a fraction of the cost.

I give those two examples to indicate the kind of specificity we’re talking about. None of those has been totally agreed upon by the agencies at this point.

We’re pushing very hard (on) the drafting of a document for environmental and health safety R&D. We hope it will be in the final review process in the next month or so. Finally, we will be planning for and conducting a number of public participation activities.

Q: At the House Science Committee hearing in November, witnesses and members of Congress indicated that we needed to put more resources into research on environmental and health effects. But it was unclear where that money should come from.

Almost from the inception of the NNI we placed a very high priority on what we call responsible development of nanotechnology. We meant that you achieve an appropriate balance between investing in R&D to advance the technology and commercialization with research to understand any potential adverse effects or impacts the technology may have for human health, the environment or society.

We really want to expand the knowledge of how we control matter at the nanoscale with the usual goals of strengthening the U.S. economy, supporting national and homeland security, and enhancing the quality of life for all citizens – as well as making our national contribution to improving the health and environment for the world.

Q: But the sense I got from the hearing was that some participants felt there aren’t sufficient allocations right now.

I think that is true, and what I was trying to say when Congressman Bart Gordon kept cutting me off (laughs) is that we identified for ’06 $38.5 million specifically for R&D on environmental health and safety implications for nanotechnology. But that identification was based on a very narrow and strict selection criteria.

We developed a definition that we sent to the agencies and said, “What R&D do you have that meets the criteria.” (The definition: R&D whose primary purpose is to understand and address potential risks to the health and the environment posed by these technologies.)

That’s fairly restrictive. We had earlier tried to make an estimate with a request to the agencies that said, “Tell us what you are doing with nanotechnology implications, applications or fundamental research related to environmental health and safety.” We got back a number that was something like $100 million. We were roundly criticized by some of the NGOs (non-governmental organizations). By including basic research and applications, (they said) that we had appeared to inflate the number.

This time we decided to narrow the definition. By doing so we got back a fairly limited scope of projects. For instance, none of the NIH research on understanding the interactions between nanoscale materials and biosystems is included because its primary purpose is aimed toward improving human health, better diagnostics and better treatment.

Q: Should industry bear some of the financial burden?

I think that is the case. Within the U.S, regulatory system, it is the responsibility of the manufacturers to ensure the safety of their products before they come into the marketplace. The regulatory agencies step in if there is evidence that that has not been the case and the product does prove to be unsafe and have adverse effects on human health or the environment.

Where the money would come from – that is actually a very important policy question. The final funding decisions about what money is going to be allocated where is based largely upon individual agencies. We provide an effective means of communication, collaboration and coordination among the agencies.

If you’re in the tight budget situation that we’re currently in, the most likely way would be for several of the agencies that would be most affected saying, “OK, if we increase funding for the (NIH’s) National Toxicology Program, where would it come from?” No one is probably going to advocate that you draw it from the National Cancer Institute. You have to ask those difficult questions when you think about this.

Q: In its report last May, PCAST encouraged the NNI to facilitate tech transfer from labs into industry. What are you doing on that front?

We organized a second meeting on the regional and state initiatives in nanotechnology. One of the goals is to improve communication to assist in states effectively supporting commercialization at the state and local level.

We keep improving our communications with small and large industries, giving them more effective understanding and knowledge about the research under way at the NNI, and to emphasize the tremendous number of facilities that are being made available for their use.

Q: Many state and local organizations aren’t government funded, so how effective can they be with few resources?

I am not aware of direct federal funding that goes to any of these state initiatives. However, if you look to some of the more successful ones, the state efforts have leveraged (state) investment to get additional support. One example would be Albany in New York.

Q: But not all states have equal resources.

I think that’s true. Certainly it depends on the local economies and their willingness to dedicate significant amounts of their resources toward this.

However, to point out another example where a state took the initiative is Arizona. The citizens decided to increase their sales tax to support educational development, and part of this was the development of facilities to do R&D at universities.

Q: What standards projects are you involved in right now?

I’m primarily involved through the American National Standards Institute (ANSI), who are acting as the administrator and secretariat for the technical advisory group (TAG) between the U.S. standards activities and the International Standards Organization (ISO). I’m serving as chair of the TAG. ANSI is the official representative of the United States to the ISO Technical Committee on Nanotechnologies.

We now have about 50 members. I encourage any industry to join in the ANSI technical advisory group. It is very important that the TAG has as thorough and broad representation across industry, academia and government as we can have. When we go to the technical committee meeting (in Japan this summer), we want to have the best and most solid scientific- and technological-based documents as we can possibly produce. That really holds weight at the international level.

The Teague file

Clayton Teague is director of the National Nanotechnology Coordination Office (NNCO), which was created to provide technical and administrative support for the Nanoscale Science, Engineering and Technology subcommittee (NSET). NSET represents the numerous departments and agencies involved in the National Nanotechnology Initiative. Before joining the NNCO, Teague was chief of the manufacturing metrology division at the National Institute of Standards and Technology. He also has worked on the technical staff at Texas Instruments.

Other applications could benefit from same dynamic

By David Forman

If a Chinese nanotechnology firm and its American partner are successful, they could have a profound effect on the next summer Olympics. The two companies could improve the air quality, reduce the noise pollution, and increase the – well, overall energy – of the 29th edition of the modern Olympic Games.

The companies are working on nanostructured batteries that aim to be the holy grail of electric transportation: batteries that charge up rapidly, hold a lot of energy, and can expend their energy at the varying rates required by an automobile, all the while being lightweight, safe and rugged.

It’s a tall order for any technology. It also happens to be an area where Chinese nanotech research has firmly connected with a commercial energy application. Much has been made of both China’s impending energy crisis and its position as an up-and-coming leader in nano and other areas of emerging technology. Experts say the country is beginning to connect the dots between nano-enabled energy research and its applications.

Batteries are at the forefront of those efforts toward real commercialization. “Our materials can run right down the manufacturing line without changes,” said Alan Gotcher, president and chief executive officer of Altair Nanotechnologies Inc., a U.S. firm that is providing its nanostructured electrode material to Advanced Battery Technologies Inc. of Harbin, China.

Advanced Battery, in turn, is integrating the material into batteries for a variety of applications. It recently announced two milestones. Late last year, tests showed that its batteries met the U.S. Council for Automotive Research FreedomCAR specifications for energy storage in hybrid electric vehicles. And in early 2006 the company announced it had started shipments of its rechargeable polymer lithium-ion (li-ion) batteries to Aiyingsi Co. Ltd., a Taiwanese maker of electric bicycles and motorcycles.

Gotcher said his company’s crystalline material has a high energy density but at the same time can move energy rapidly, both of which are desirable attributes for battery applications but which are often mutually exclusive. “The more surface area, the more the ions are moving faster and faster,” he explained. Historically, he added, the problem with using crystalline material was that the very nanoscale crystals that made the performance possible would fracture under the stress. However, “Our crystals aren’t breaking,” he said.

Advanced Battery is building prototype buses for completion by the end of the second quarter to compete for selection for the 2008 Olympics. The Chinese government has said it wants to use at least a thousand electric buses as part of a fleet for ferrying people around the Games.

Advanced Battery is hardly the only Chinese firm commercializing nano-related battery innovations. China BAK Battery Inc., a Shenzhen, China, manufacturer of li-ion battery cells, announced earlier this year that it had signed agreements with Lenovo Group of Hong Kong and A123 Systems of Watertown, Mass.

Lenovo is the Chinese company that bought IBM’s computer division in late 2004, making it the third largest personal computer manufacturer in the world. China BAK has been supplying Lenovo with batteries for cellular phones since last August. The intent now is to supply batteries for laptop computers.

A123 is developing nanophosphate li-ion batteries using technology licensed from Massachusetts Institute of Technology. It and China BAK have been working together since early 2005 and recently announced starting volume production to make batteries for power tools, medical devices and hybrid electric vehicles.

Such academic collaborations are not surprising. Advanced Battery contracted with Harbin University of Science and Technology in China to make the electrical controls and other systems for an electric car project using Altair’s nanomaterials. It also has a cooperative agreement with the Beijing Institute of Technology in China to develop and test the four buses it is building as prototypes for the Olympic electric bus program.

On the other hand, what may be surprising is that there is not more of such commercial collaboration between nanotech research and energy applications.

There is no doubt that Chinese nanotech research is ramping up, according to Mike Roco, the senior adviser to the U.S. National Science Foundation who tracks international nanotech development closely. By Roco’s count, China has moved up impressively, ranking second behind the United States as measured by the number of academic papers published on nanotechnology in a year.

However, warned Roco, prolific papers do not necessarily equal superiority in research. “If you look at the citations index they are not in the top-five cited,” he said. He argues that successive researchers citing previous works is a stronger indicator of the quality of research than the sheer number of papers produced.

“I like to get people to be more realistic,” Roco said. There is a perception of “China going from nothing a few years ago to a superpower (in nanotech research) …but it’s not the same level of quality.” Give it at least another decade, he said.

But perhaps more importantly, a community of corporate executives, engineers, entrepreneurs and academic researchers committed to connecting nanotech innovation to energy solutions has not yet congealed.

“Hydrogen storage, solar, fuel cells, thermoelectrics. These are all using nanotechnology,” said Gang Chen, a mechanical engineering professor at Massachusetts Institute of Technology who retains close ties with researchers in his native China.

“But generally speaking, nano for energy is still a ways off,” said Chen, whose research focuses on energy transfer and conversion and who recently organized a conference on energy and nanotechnology. “It’s not making a big wave when people are thinking about nanotechnology.”

Chen points out that China’s national research program includes projects for both energy and nanotech research, such as high energy battery development and solar power for hydrogen generation. But there is no Chinese version of the U.S. National Nanotechnology Initiative explicitly linking the two developments. And, he said, “Chinese corporate research is not at a scale of a GE or IBM.”

However, a facet of Chinese academic funding could help make up the difference. Chen said that in China, when the government funds a science project – even a basic science project – there is generally an application focus and a physical result.

“Every project they have,” he said, “they ask you to deliver some hardware after one to two years.”

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“Sometimes there are rumors about China which are exaggerated,” says Mike Roco, the senior adviser to the U.S. National Science Foundation. He says China is coming on strong but is still far from competing head-to-head with the U.S. in nanotech research. Photo courtesy of Peter West/National Science Foundation

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“Our materials can help them make a distinctive product,” says Alan Gotcher, CEO of Altair Nanotechnologies, which supplies nanostructured materials to Advanced Battery Technologies Inc. for use in batteries fabricated in Harbin, China. Photo courtesy of Altair Nanotechnologies Inc.

By Kyle James

BASF, the world’s largest chemical company, is devoting $221 million to nano-technology research and development between 2006 and 2008. The German corporation is opening up a new nanotech center in Singapore this year as well. The investments are part of an expansion of its global R&D activities, with nanotech one of five “growth clusters” that BASF will build over the next two years to ensure it stays competitive.

“Nanotechnology gives us the possibi-lity to innovate, especially in a hard market like chemicals,” said Elmar Kessenich, manager of nanotechnology coordination at BASF. “Most of the chemical market is commodities, so if you really want to be competitive, you have to add value. You can do that with nanotechnology.”

Besides nanotechnology, BASF is concentrating on energy management, raw material change, plant biotechnology and white biotechnology. (White biotechnology uses biological systems and techniques to make cleaner or more energy efficient industrial processes.) All together, the five areas will receive $982 million.


Ultradur High Speed, a nanoparticle-based engineering plastic developed at BASF, flows twice as far as conventional Ultradur. Better flow saves manufacturers time and money. Photo courtesy of BASF
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The list of nanotech areas BASF plans to support with the cash infusion is long. It includes new products for the automotive and construction markets, cosmetics, printed electronics, electronic components and energy management systems such as fuel cells, OLED displays, and a variety of surfaces, such as scratch-resistant coatings and dirt-repellent paint.

BASF says its R&D strategy will enable it to stay at the forefront of materials innovation. While nanotechnology is still in its early stages regarding widespread application, even conservative estimates put growth rates at 10 percent a year and an end-user market size at $614 billion in 2010. BASF expects the market for its nanosystems and components to be between $61 billion and $74 billion in four years.

“It’s a key technology for us, since it helps us meet challenges of the global market not only with new products but also with old ones,” Kessenich said.

As an example, he cited the company’s Ultradur High Speed product, an engineered plastic for electronic components. While a previous version of the product had been on the market for several years, BASF added nanoparticles to the mix, which brought down manufacturing costs and increased performance.

Part of BASF’s more intensive focus on nanotechnology is a new research center in Singapore, the company’s first nanotech facility to be opened in Asia. Set up to open at the end of the first quarter of 2006, the center will concentrate on nanostructured surface modifications, such as controlling the hydrophobic or hydrophilic characteristics of a surface. Hydrophobic molecules shun water; hydrophilic molecules have an affinity for water.


Nanocubes’ three-dimensional lattice structure has numerous pores and channels, making nanocubes an ideal storage medium for hydrogen. Hydrogen is one energy source being proposed for miniaturized fuel cells for portable devices. Photo courtesy of BASF
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The facility will employ about 20 people, including six researchers, technicians and post-docs, with most of them coming from the region. BASF chose Singapore because of the city-state’s good infrastructure, its location and the fact that intellectual property protection is better there than in China. That’s “a prerequisite for any R&D project,” said Harald Lauke, president of the company’s Asia-Pacific division.

According to Kessenich, Asia is focusing more of its attention on nanotech. “There are a lot of interesting nano startups there,” he said. “At international conferences we see increasing numbers of good researchers from Asia presenting their results.”

Asia in general is also becoming a more important market for BASF, which is interested in getting a firm foothold there. BASF is not completely new to Asia; the company opened a chemical production facility in Nanjing, China in 2005. A presence in the region will also help BASF recruit Asian chemists, since the company could offer them a position closer to home instead of asking them to move to another continent.

BASF’s strategy appears to be on target, since Asia as a recruiting ground is looking more fertile all the time. A Georgia Institute of Technology study found that as more Asians earn doctorates, they increasingly apply them to Asian – not U.S.-based – careers. In the meantime, the number of U.S. citizens earning advanced degrees continues to decline.

The investment advisory group Innovest gave BASF good marks in the nanotechnology index it published in the fall. It highlighted the company as having high growth potential relative to its competitors, especially regarding transparency and addressing potential concerns like product safety.

“It’s not all sunshine. Some of their products are still in the commodity range and they do have a lot of risk,” said Heather Langsner, author of the report. “But they have paid attention to nanotech risk factors and will most likely succeed in sensitive markets.”

Mar. 1, 2006 — Stanford University School of Medicine was named one of the National Cancer Institute’s Centers for Cancer Nanotechnology Excellence, according to a news release.

The institute has allotted approximately $20 million over five years to the Stanford-based center, which will be led by professor of radiology and bioengineering Sanjiv Sam Gambhir, who also directs the molecular imaging program at Stanford.

The Stanford center is slated to receive $3.83 million in its first year. It will aim its efforts at imaging diseases in vivo and determining what is going on within patients’ bodies through blood or tissue sample analysis.

Participants at Stanford will include faculty from a variety of disciplines with the intention of combining their expertise to develop new ways to detect cancer and evaluate therapies. UCLA, Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, the University of Texas-Austin, General Electric Global Research and Intel Corp will also participate.

Seven other Centers for Cancer Nanotechnology Excellence were announced last October. Each of the eight centers has its own focus in seeking to eliminate suffering and death due to cancer.

– David Forman