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Groups worldwide rally to bring consistency to nano

By Matt Kelly

A little bit of the mystery has gone out of nanotechnology. And that, everyone agrees, is a good thing.

Late last year engineers for the first time endorsed a standard specifically for nanotechnology: P1650, a method of describing the electrical properties of carbon nanotubes. The announcement came on the heels of another standards initiative. In November, the International Standards Organization (ISO) created a committee to forge nanotech standards.

Two years in the making, P1650 was ratified by the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) in December. More are coming, and researchers insist such specifications cannot arrive soon enough.

“We need this big time,” said Jonathan Tucker, an industry consultant with Keithley Instruments Inc. in Cleveland, which makes testing equipment. “If I buy a jar of carbon nanotubes, to the naked eye it just looks like carbon black. I have no clue what I really have there.”

Determining what other people have has vexed nanotech researchers for years. Without standard means of testing nanoscale devices, or even standard terms to define what those devices are, researchers cannot reliably reproduce other scientists’ results. Manufacturers cannot scale up production of a prototype they create. Those sorts of obstacles prevent commercialization of basic nanotech research from moving forward.

“This is definitely important to the industry,” said Michael Holman, an analyst with Lux Research. Some of Lux’s large corporate clients, he said, are hesitant to pursue nanotech vigorously because of the lack of standards. “They’ve found that the materials advertised on the Web site are one thing, but what they’re actually able to deliver is often another. … It’s held them back in some cases.”

P1650 represents a first step to remedy the situation. The standard directs nanotube manufacturers to describe the tubes’ length, diameter and number of walls, along with other basic characteristics. While nobody is required to obey the standard, IEEE officials hope nanotube manufacturers will voluntarily obey so their products are more attractive to prospective customers.

From here, however, the remedy only gets more difficult. P1650 only addresses electrical engineering concerns about nanotubes. According to Daniel Gamota, a researcher at Motorola Corp. who led the IEEE’s P1650 working group, that focus made the standard “pretty simple” to define. Future standards that tackle more complicated subjects will be more challenging because nanotechnology cuts across so many disciplines.

Already, for example, the IEEE is developing another standard: P1690, to describe the properties of nanotubes when they are additives to bulk materials. That idea cuts across chemical, thermal and mechanical engineering, so more people must sit at the table to hash out the details. Gamota admitted “this one could be tougher.”

Circumstances are much the same for nanotech standards in life sciences. ASTM International has taken the lead on that front with a working group led by the Nanotechnology Characterization Laboratory. The NCL has proposed 12 protocols to measure and describe nanoparticles’ effects on living tissue, and already sent four of them to an ASTM subcommittee so private sector participants can give input.

NCL director Scott McNeil said nanoparticles are tricky to characterize because many are naturally fluorescent or interact with enzymes. Fluorescence and enzymes are two common tools to describe microbes, so the NCL must devise a whole new “characterization kit” for nanoparticles rather than use a pre-existing one.

The four standards that have gone to ASTM for review so far address how a particle reacts to blood cells; cell death; cytotoxicity; and a reactive test to see how nanoparticles affect samples of bone marrow. McNeil expects decisions on the standards within the next six months.


NNCO director Clayton Teague spearheads U.S. efforts to create standards in nanotechnology. Photo courtesy of the NNCO
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Globally, the ISO brought together representatives from 22 nations in London in November to discuss what standards to address first. The top candidates were metrology, health and environmental safety, and terminology. Working groups were created for each. Canada now leads the terminology group, Japan the metrology, and the United States the health and environmental.

Clayton Teague, director of the National Nanotechnology Coordination Office and the U.S. point man on standards, now chairs a technical advisory group to develop ISO standards and to cooperate with other groups like IEEE and ASTM on their work. The ISO’s technical committee, Teague said, will reconvene in June and “there’s full expectation that we’ll have quite a number of work items to put on the table for consideration, and action will formally be taken by then.”

Expect to see some ISO technical reports or public specifications on nanotech about one year from now, Teague said. Such documents don’t have the force of a standard, but they are good indicators of where standard-setting bodies want to go. A fully ratified standard – which would be called ISO 229, with various sub-standards tacked on – could take three years to adopt.

And of all needed standards, Teague said, the most important is simple terminology: “a major area of unmet need.” Even basic wording to describe nanoscale items remains imprecise, and without that language the technology will never be able to mature.

John Miller, vice president of intellectual property at Arrowhead Research Corp., notes that the United States alone has granted patents regarding carbon “nanotubes,” “nanostructures,” and “nanofibers” when all the applications sought to patent essentially the same thing.

“This is gradually being solved at the patent office, but it does create broad and overlapping patents… with different examiners looking at similar applications with differing claim language,” he said. “The problem will emerge when products come to market and people start suing each other.”

That’s one standard procedure nanotech researchers hope to avoid.

In late 2004, Motorola joined in a federally supported program with Carbon Nanotechnologies Inc.(CNI) and Johnson Matthey Fuel Cells Inc. to develop electrodes for micro fuel cells. The goal of the three-year, $7.4 million project is to provide free-standing carbon nanotube electrodes for proton exchange membranes in direct methanol fuel cells. The fuel cells would power Motorola’s mobile phones and other portable devices.

A year later Motorola Ventures invested in Tekion Inc., a nanotech energy company that offers a micro fuel cell-battery hybrid. Tekion’s technology relies on fuel cartridges that contain a purified form of formic acid that it calls Formira.

“We’re hedging our bets,” said Jerry Hallmark, a fellow in Motorola Labs’ energy technologies program. While Motorola is unlikely to manufacture miniaturized fuel cells, it wants to ensure that it is among the first to capitalize on technologies that free mobile phones and other devices from the power grid. “There is no one fuel cell that will be right for everything. It’s too early to pick a winner.”


Tekion’s fuel cell, at left, is about twice the size of a coin. Photo courtesy of Tekion
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The race is on, nonetheless, and it is expected to intensify this year. A safety panel for the International Civil Aviation Organization recommended last fall that aviation regulators allow passengers to carry methanol- and formic acid-powered electronic devices onboard aircraft. The decision, which is expected to get approval as early as April and go into effect in 2007, will remove a barrier for micro fuel cell developers who rely on either potentially explosive methanol or corrosive formic acid to provide the juice for laptops, cell phones and other portable devices.

The year 2007 also marks the end of the federal Advanced Technology Program award that is shared by Motorola, CNI and Johnson Matthey, and coincides with the target launch date for Tekion’s first commercial product.

“We are really supporting Motorola’s future,” said T.J. Wainerdi, director of business development at CNI, a Houston-based single-wall carbon nanotube manufacturer that was launched in 2000. Wainerdi also serves as its liaison in the fuel cell project. “We will some day be in fuel cells in Motorola’s phones.”

CNI’s free-standing carbon nanotube electrodes are expected to be more powerful and simpler to make than existing membrane electrode assemblies. In their first-year review, the team reported getting good performance results using less precious metal catalyst material. They also saw indications that their electrodes were less prone to corrosion, which in the past has prohibitively limited the lifetimes of membranes.


Tekion uses Formira, a form of formic acid, in its fuel cells. The fuel cells rely on a proton exchange membrane, or PEM, to convert energy stored in liquid fuel into electricity. Source: Tekion Inc.
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Tekion offers another approach for powering portable devices. It has developed a fuel cell-battery hybrid that relies on liquid fuel in a miniature cartridge. The fuel cell converts fuel in a chemical reaction into electricity to recharge batteries. Consumers replace cartridges when their batteries run low. Tekion’s approach combines the attributes of both fuel cells and batteries, said Neil Huff, president and chief executive of Tekion.

“Motorola recognizes there is an energy gap,” Huff said. “People have been demanding more functionality and more portability. They could see turning this into a product.”

Tekion, with operations in British Columbia and Illinois, was founded in 2003. It demonstrated its Formira Power Pack technology in 2004 by powering up a Nokia cell phone, and it expects to have products on the market in 2007.

Neither Tekion nor CNI anticipate that they’ll break into the cell phone market as early as 2007, though. They envision their technologies finding a foothold in some of Motorola’s other communications products first. They suggested products such as the satellite phones and two-way radios used by emergency workers in disasters like Hurricane Katrina. Batteries had proven woefully inadequate in such off-grid applications.

They said that two-way radios and satellite phones would provide steppingstones, offering revenues and real-world experiences of integrating their products into devices. “The holy grail is the cell phone,” Huff said. “But that will take a significant effort.”

Finding a small, reliable and cost-effective power source for Motorola’s cell phones remains Hallmark’s long-term goal as well. “The cell phone is the ultimate thing that we’d like to deal with,” Hallmark said. And part of Motorola’s strategy for a diverse fuel cell initiative is to ensure it is not dependent on a sole provider, Hallmark added. “We’d like to have multiple suppliers. It gets costs down.”
– Candace Stuart

By Candace Stuart

Gajus Worthington knew three years ago that he needed to find a manufacturing site for Fluidigm Corp. The San Francisco Bay-area company had already released its first generation microfluidic biochip for analyzing proteins and was poised to ramp up production.

Worthington, Fluidigm’s co-founder and chief executive officer, eliminated San Francisco quickly. It offered a skilled workforce but its costs were too high. He explored the possibility of Boston, North Carolina’s Research Triangle Park, the UK and Europe and found them lacking.

At the prompting of a board member, he contacted the Economic Development Board in Singapore. He was well acquainted with the tiny nation; in a previous position at Actel Corp. he helped set up a fab to make integrated circuits.

“I worked closely with the folks in Singapore,” he said. “It turned out to be our best fab, with the highest yields, and it came up quickly.”

That was one reason that Worthington decided to place the company’s first commercial plant in Singapore. Fluidigm became the first company to open a biochip fab in Singapore last fall. It is expected to be an anchor for Singapore’s developing medical technology industry.

Fluidigm plans to use the state-of-the-art fab for making chips based on its soft lithography techniques. The new fab takes advantage of Singapore’s expertise in semiconductor processes, according to BEH Swan Gin, director of the Singapore Economic Development Board’s biomedical sciences group. Fluidigm also fits into the nation’s goal to build a knowledge-based, high tech economy.


Chips go through various fabrication and verification processes in the Singapore facility. Photos courtesy of Fluidigm.
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“Fluidigm is recognized as one of the most innovative companies in the biomedical field,” Gin said in an e-mail interview. “Its products address the needs of biomedical researchers, which lead to synergies with Singapore’s growing base of drug discovery and other biomedical research.”

Fluidigm will invest more than $23 million in the facility. The company likely will be eligible for economic breaks or incentives, although neither Worthington nor Gin would provide details. Fluidigm already had received venture capital funding in 2004 through an investment fund managed by the Economic Development Board.

Grace Yow, Fluidigm’s general manager in Singapore, located the fab in a former semiconductor facility vacated by a company that had moved to China. “We could almost move in and start,” Worthington said.

Worthington expects to begin production of Topaz, which the company promotes as a fast and simple biochip system for research or drug discovery, in the Singapore site. Eventually the fab may produce Fluidigm’s latest product line, dubbed Dynamic Array Integrated Fluidic Circuits.

The arrays are high-throughput devices that can detect DNA in low concentrations – what Worthington terms “needle in a haystack problems.” The arrays could be used for clinical applications or for cancer detection. The California office will continue to conduct all research and development.

Fluidigm may get more than a quality fab in a welcoming country that offers a trained workforce. Being part of Singapore’s biotech cluster will allow it to rub shoulders with what may be the makers of the next blockbuster products. Early collaborations could lead to lucrative business opportunities in the future. “That’s an added benefit,” Worthington said.

Despite changes afoot at their troubled semiconductor division, researchers at Dutch multinational Philips Electronics continue to develop technology that will enable the next generation of chips. They are among a handful of companies using nanoscale components to make transistors ever smaller.

“Historically the semiconductor roadmap has always been about more Moore,” said Ronald Wolf, group leader at Philips Research, referring to Intel co-founder Gordon Moore. Moore predicted that chips would need to continually shrink to meet consumer demand. “Today, instead, we’re looking at more than Moore, trying to equip silicon with added functionality.”

At the base of this development are nanowires. Nanowires appear to be a frontrunner for replacing conventional CMOS technology, said Leo Kouwenhoven, a professor at the Kavli Institute of Nanoscience at Delft University of Technology and a Philips research partner. Philips Electronics is not alone it its quest: Multinationals such as Intel, IBM and Infineon also have nano initiatives.

Philips researchers deposit gold particles onto a silicon substrate that act as seed particles out of which nanowires made of semiconductor material like gallium arsenide or indium phosphide are grown. “The beauty of our process,” said Philips Research’s Erik Bakker, “is that it finally enables us to integrate the superior electrical and optical properties of these expensive non-silicon semiconductors with mature and cheap silicon technology.”

Wolf said that multifunctional capability may allow Philips to make smaller and faster chips as well as new types of biosensors and more efficient lighting – the company’s sole focus when it was founded in 1891. Light-emitting wires on a chip could distribute the clock frequency optically instead of electrically, enabling much faster processors. They demonstrated in a Science article published last year that they could make superconducting transistors as well. These accomplishments are feasible on an industrial scale, Wolf and Kouwenhoven said, but not for another 10 years.


Philips claims that its technique can yield more than 4 billion nanowires in a single step. Image courtesy of Philips Electronics.
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Charles Harris, chief executive officer of the publicly traded venture capital firm Harris & Harris Group, pointed out that not every application is a decade away. Harris and Harris invests solely in micro and nanotechnology companies. “You have, for example carbon nanotubes in the bumpers of General Motors’ cars,” he said. “And there is Nanomix, a company we have an investment in, that is employing nanotubes in a sensor device that you can already purchase.”

Nanosys, another company backed by Harris & Harris, has been working on commercial applications for nanostructures since its founding in 2001. Nanosys co-founder Stephen Empedocles said, “We don’t look at anything that far (10 years) out. We have products that we are projecting for market introduction in the next 12 to 18 months.”

Harris said the differing timeframes are typical in industry. “Big multinationals are thinking about nanotechnology first and foremost from a defensive point of view, as they should. They have their leading market position to lose, while startup companies have nothing to lose, everything to win.”

Nanosys targets similar applications as Philips, as well as solar cells, memory chips and fuel cells. Instead of looking at single-wire devices, Nanosys produces ink consisting of billions of nanowires that its engineers coat onto a surface by a low-cost roll-to-roll process. “In a way, it’s like cheap coatable silicon,” Empedocles said. “Our technology allows you to create thin-film transistors with electronic characteristics that you would normally only find in crystalline silicon wafers.”

Empedocles said single-wire electronics have limitations. “How (do you) place the hundreds of billions of wires right where you need them to form an electronic circuit?” he said. “In our case, we don’t really worry where those transistors are because they’re everywhere and the circuit is where you apply the electrodes.”

Ideally, a single-wire circuit would assemble itself, but current self-assembly processes can only be used for simple structures such as thin films, Kouwenhoven said. That is one reason for Philips’ 10-year development projection.

Philips researchers may not have the luxury of time, though. Last September, the company announced that weak demand had prompted it to consider restructuring its semiconductor division. In mid-December, Philips announced that it planned to break out the semiconductor divisio
– Colin Ashruf

Articles by Candace Stuart

The Department of Energy estimates that more than 18,000 researchers from industry, academia and government agencies take advantage of user facilities at more than a dozen major national laboratories annually. In the coming years, that total will include more and more researchers involved in micro and nanotechnology after the DOE completes five new nanoscience centers that are expected to cost more than $350 million.

The centers, which come from the DOE’s contribution to the multi-agency National Nanotechnology Initiative, are designed to be shared with the research community. Each includes clean rooms, laboratories and the most advanced instruments for fulfilling a specified mission. Brookhaven National Laboratory will focus on functional nanomaterials, for instance, while Sandia and Los Alamos labs will concentrate on integrating nanotechnologies. Oak Ridge National Laboratory became the first DOE nano lab to open its doors for business in late 2005 with the launching of its Center for Nanophase Materials Sciences. More centers are expected to come online this year.

And that means opportunities to access the labs’ sophisticated equipment and talented staffs. Even centers that are not fully up and running have made their facilities available for outside users. Usage is free if universities or companies agree to publish their findings in the open literature. A fee is charged for proprietary research. Anyone, including researchers outside the United States, can submit proposals.

Have a technical problem that stands between your company and commercial success? Or a theory that needs a multimillion-dollar machine to test it? Check the following pages; Your solution may be close at hand.

For more information on the program and each center, visit www.nano.gov/html/centers/DOEcenters.html

Argonne: Looking at the insides of molecules and their bonds

Argonne National Laboratory owns one of the world’s brightest X-ray research facilities in the world, the Advanced Photon Source. The APS allows scientists to probe beneath the surface of materials to better understand their structures.

Scientists will have that capability on the nanoscale after the Center for Nanoscale Materials opens in 2007 in suburban Chicago. The 83,000-square-foot building will be adjacent to the APS and will house the nanoprobe, an X-ray microscopy beam line that lets researchers look into molecules at resolutions so small that they’ll be able to determine the types of bonds being created. Better knowledge of a material’s structure may lend insights into how it functions, said Eric Isaacs, the center’s director.


Argonne’s nanopore array serves as a template for making nanowires. Image courtesy of Argonne
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“We’re pushing the limits,” Isaacs said. Within two years, Argonne’s designers will have developed the optics to focus X-ray beams down to 30 nanometers, he predicted. “In three years, possibly 10 nanometers. In principle, we could get it to 1 nanometer.”

The Department of Energy gave Argonne $36 million to develop and build instrumentation for the center. The State of Illinois provided another $36 million for building the facility. They broke ground in 2004 and are on schedule to finish construction by this summer. The center, which already had launched an early access users program, will be open to users this year. It will be fully operational by the fall of 2007.

The overarching goal at Argonne will be to create and better understand new nanomaterials, with research themes that build off Argonne’s existing strengths. Those include nanomagnetics and electronics, and organic-inorganic hybrid structures. Nanomagnetic structures may lead to more efficient motors, for instance, while hybrids may be used in energy storage and conversion.

The center also takes advantage of other resources at Argonne, such as its Electron Microscopy Center and the Intense Pulsed Neutron Source. But for nanoscientists, Argonne’s gem is likely to be the combination of the APS and the nanoprobe. The tools will help researchers not only make new materials, but also visualize and understand them.


The Center for Nanoscale Materials will be connected to the ring-shaped Advanced Photon Source. Illustration courtesy of Argonne
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“This is a tremendous opportunity for synthesizing and making materials,” Isaacs said. “We have the APS for understanding stuff, right next to the place where you can characterize them.”

Advanced Diamond Technologies, an Argonne spinout that specializes in nanocrystalline diamond films, already has entered the users program, Isaacs said. He estimated that about a third to a quarter of participants would come from industry when the program is fully operational. “They’re looking to fill a gap in a big way,” he said. “They have a vision but they don’t have the resources.”

Besides offering one-of-a-kind equipment like the nanoprobe, the center will have another draw, Isaacs pointed out. “We have very smart, expert people.”

Brookhaven: Tailoring nanomaterials to solve energy problems

The State of New York sees nanotechnology and energy as two areas of potential economic growth and leadership. For good reason: It is home to leading nanotechnology research programs like Columbia, Cornell, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (RPI), and Albany NanoTech. New York serves as the headquarters for corporate giants IBM and General Electric, who look at nano-based energy from the extremes of power-saving nanoelectronics to power-creating generators. And it has been the birthplace of startups like NanoDynamics that pursue energy applications.

Add to that mixture the Department of Energy’s Brookhaven National Laboratory in Upton and its $81 million Center for Functional Nanomaterials (CFN). The center will allow researchers to create tailor-made nanomaterials, with an emphasis on technologies that apply to energy.

CFN will lift nanotechnology research beyond imaging and fabrication to the level of precisely controlled structures that perform specific tasks, said Robert Hwang, center director. “We got here because we’ve developed so much machinery to see things, and chemical synthesis techniques to make things. What’s missing? We want to not only see and not only make things; we want to make materials by design.”


Brookhaven’s Center for Functional Nanomaterials is scheduled to be fully operational in 2008. Illustration courtesy of Brookhaven
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Brookhaven began construction on the 94,500-square-foot facility in 2005 and has a target date of 2007 for final construction and 2008 for being fully operational. The center will be located next to the National Synchrotron Light Sources (NSLS), and will include a set of end stations on beam lines to the NSLS. It also will house five laboratory clusters and a theory and computation center.

Research projects will be based on the three themes of nanocatalysts, nanoelectronics and biological and soft nanomaterials. While much of the focus will be on understanding how functional nanomaterials form and how they react in certain environments, Brookhaven will also be looking at how these technologies may be used in energy applications.

“Energy is a tremendous challenge to this nation and the world,” Hwang said. “We want to develop functional nanomaterials that impact energy usage, production and efficiency.”

Through the center, researchers will have access to instruments for imaging atomic and molecular structures, fabrication facilities and clean rooms. The NSLS offers an X-ray ring and a vacuum ultraviolet ring that can produce a spectrum of intense light for probing materials. Brookhaven’s Laser-Electron Accelerator Facility can be used for studying phenomena such as charge transport between molecules.

The new and existing instruments will let researchers examine materials as they form and as they are exposed to various environments. “We’ll be able to watch them (materials) while they are being made, and see how they function in a real environment,” Hwang said. “We’ll see how the structure evolves during a reaction – see the chemistry of it.”

Understanding how a material forms, and controlling that formation, would lead to tailor-made nanomaterials with a set of desired properties and precise functions. The designer materials could enhance New York-based initiatives such as the partially state-funded Center for Future Energy Systems. RPI, in partnership with Cornell University and Brookhaven, opened the $20 million center last year to foster innovation and commercialization of fuel cells and other technologies that conserve energy or provide renewable energy resources.

Lawrence Berkeley: Giving innovators tools to succeed

Researchers at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory have had no shortage of world-class instruments to try to achieve their goals. The lab, located next to the campus of the University of California, Berkeley, owns one of the world’s brightest sources for ultraviolet and soft X-ray beams, an electron microscopy center and one of the world’s largest computing centers. This year it will add another attraction to its list: the Molecular Foundry.

“The idea is to help speed up the cycle of innovation by making available (equipment) for making materials,” said Paul Alivisatos, a chemist at UC Berkeley and director of the Molecular Foundry, soon after accepting the foundry position. “This will enable everyone to operate close to the state of the art.”

Berkeley Lab broke ground on the $85 million, 94,500-square-foot facility in 2004 and is expected to complete equipment installation and begin scientific operations this year. The six-story building will devote each floor to a specific research theme: inorganic nanostructures; nanofabrication; organic polymer/biopolymer synthesis; biological nanostructures; imaging and manipulation; and theory.


Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory is bordered by the University of California, Berkeley campus and is near the San Francisco Bay. Photo courtesy of Berkeley Lab
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The nanofabrication facility will include lithographic and thin-film processing tools. Among Berkeley’s assets will be its nanowriter, an electron beam lithography system with beam diameters of 5 nanometers for patterning on surfaces. The imaging and manipulation floor will allow researchers to design and develop instruments for making and studying nanostructures, while the theory section will provide theoretical support and principles to guide future research.

The themes build off Berkeley’s existing user facilities. Those include the National Center for Electron Microscopy, which contains world-class microscopes for imaging nanomaterials and developing new imaging techniques; the National Energy Research Scientific Computing Center, which provides simulation and analysis expertise; and the Advanced Light Source, a third-generation synchrotron light source.

To date, most user projects accepted by the Molecular Foundry have been submitted by researchers at U.S.-based universities and federal labs. But large and small companies as well as foreign researchers have begun to take advantage of the facility. The roster for projects accepted in 2005 includes IBM, Intel, Nanosolar and research initiatives from France and Spain.

Oak Ridge: Well equipped for looking at nanostructures

Oak Ridge National Laboratory was among the first of the Department of Energy’s laboratories to begin building a nano center in 2003 and it is the first to cross the finish line. Oak Ridge officially opened its Center for Nanophase Materials Sciences (CNMS) in late 2005, making it the eldest of the pack of five user facilities funded by the DOE.

But the best is yet to come. The $65 million center is expected to be fully in stride by March, accepting user proposals for not only research whose findings will be published in publicly accessible journals but also for projects whose results will remain proprietary information for companies that are willing to cover the costs. By the end of the year, scientists at Oak Ridge as well as visitors will have access to another critical facility for conducting nanoscience research, the Spallation Neutron Source.


Oak Ridge researcher Thomas Thundat uses the Photo-Molecular Comb, a tool that separates proteins and biological molecules for analysis and identification. Thundat has won numerous awards for his micro- and nanoscale research. Photos courtesy of Oak Ridge National Laboratory
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“The Spallation Neutron Source is not completed yet, so what we’re doing now is focusing on the development of the community and the instrumentation that will allow us to do nanoscience there,” said Linda Horton, director of CNMS. In the meantime, Oak Ridge offers an upgraded high-flux isotope reactor that has neutron scattering capabilities. “Where we think we will have a high impact is looking structurally at magnetism. … Neutron scattering is one of the best tools for looking at magnetism and for looking at polymers and polymer structures.”

The intense neutron beams that both the Spallation Neutron Source and the revamped reactor produce can be used to study the structure and dynamic nature of nanomaterials. Such fundamental knowledge will help innovators link the nanoscale world to ours. “Beyond thin films, beyond carbon nanotubes, beyond small things that are in nanoscience, there is also going to be, in the longer term, a lot of interest in functional materials that start building toward bulk structures,” Horton said.


The four-story Center for Nanophase Materials Sciences contains lab space, offices, a nanofabrication lab with clean rooms and a Nanomaterials Theory Institute.
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The 80,000-square-foot facility holds wet and dry labs and equipment for making and understanding the properties of nanomaterials. It includes a nanofabrication lab with clean rooms and a Nanomaterials Theory Institute. The institute taps into the computing capabilities of Oak Ridge’s Center for Computational Sciences, which can provide support for simulation and modeling.

Research themes will range from soft and hybrid nanomaterials such as polymers and biomaterials to hard, complex nanomaterials such as magnetic materials and nanocomposites. The center also will conduct work in nanofabrication, theory and imaging.

CNMS already has served companies like Seagate, Luna Innovations and NanoTek through its early access users program, and is now positioned to take on paying users who prefer to keep findings a secret. Horton predicted that some companies will prefer the proprietary research option because of nanotechnology’s sometimes quick leap from discovery to commercial application.

Sandia, Los Alamos: Getting the pieces to fit together

The Center for Integrated Nanotechnologies (CINT) is unlike any of the other Department of Energy’s nano facilities. To begin with, it is overseen by two national labs, not one. And those two labs exist under the umbrella of the DOE’s National Nuclear Security Administration, and not the Office of Science that manages most of the DOE labs.

Sandia National Laboratories in Albuquerque, N.M., and nearby Los Alamos National Laboratory decided to jointly develop a center that combines their strengths and capabilities. Los Alamos brought to the marriage its experience at running user facilities and research leadership in physics and biological sciences. Sandia offered expertise in microelectronics and a track record of integrating small-scale technologies.


The MEMS test unit sits beneath a black box that is slightly larger than the grains of salt placed beside it. Photos courtesy of Sandia National Laboratories.
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“Each lab has different but complementary skills,” said Julia Phillips, director of CINT and director of Sandia’s Physical, Chemical and Nano Sciences Center. Sandia also provides a chief scientist to the executive team, while Los Alamos contributes an associate director and the manager for the center’s user program. CINT has targeted complex functional nanomaterials, the nano-micro interface and nanoelectronics and nanophotonics among its key research areas.

The $76 million center includes a core facility outside the Kirtland Air Force Base in Albuquerque that will offer 96,000 square feet of office and lab space. The facility will house a clean room and labs equipped for chemical, biological, optical and laser-related research. Los Alamos’ 34,000-square-foot building will provide space and tools for biosciences and nanomaterials research.

Construction at both sites started in 2004 and wrapped up in late 2005. Los Alamos is expected to launch initial operations in February and Sandia in March. Both are scheduled to be fully operational in May 2007.


Sandia researcher Steve Thornberg has developed a sampling mechanism for analyzing atmospheres inside tiny devices such as microsystems. Sandia is known for its innovative work in MEMS and microsystems.
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Sandia and Los Alamos are looking at integration across disciplines, types of materials, functions and scales, Phillips said. “In order to have the greatest impact, you need to translate from the nano to the macro; you’ll need to integrate. Microsystems have done that well. That’s Sandia’s strength.”

The two labs can tap into a number of existing tools and facilities such as Los Alamos’ Neutron Science Center and National High Magnetic Field Laboratory and Sandia’s microelectronics fabrication facility. But they also are working on creating a novel technology called Discovery Platforms, MEMS-based laboratories that can perform nanoscience experiments. The platforms, which will be available to users, will measure electronic, mechanical, fluidic, optical, thermal and other properties in nanomaterials and nanostructures.

“This will be a huge difference between us and the other labs,” Phillips said. “It’s microsystems to do nanoscience.” Microsystems will allow researchers to run experiments in parallel, eliminating the random, one-time-only results that have plagued nanotechnology, Phillips said. “They will be highly reproducible.”

The collaboration differs from other centers in another way as well, Phillips said. As part of the DOE’s nuclear program, the two labs secure the nation’s nuclear stockpile and develop technologies for homeland defense and national security. Phillips said that no classified work will be conducted at the center, and facilities have been situated to allow access from foreign as well as U.S. researchers. But she said the labs’ researchers are sensitized by their mission, and will be attuned to dual-use applications that may pop up as they work on integrated nanotechnologies.

By David Forman

Private nanotechnology funding in the United States climbed significantly in 2005. However, the increase is the result of a number of funding trends rather than a simple rush to nanotech.

By the third quarter of 2005 (the latest for which data was available), venture firms had invested $312.8 million in 39 deals, according to a Small Times analysis of the MoneyTree Survey by PricewaterhouseCoopers, Thomson Venture Economics and the National Venture Capital Association. That puts calendar year 2005 on pace to far exceed the $196.4 million investors put into 45 nanotechnology companies during 2004.

The figure also tops the $301 million record for nanotechnology funding that Small Times tracked in 2003. Anecdotal reports suggest the pace would continue through the end of the fourth quarter, which would result in a deal total topping last year’s count of 45.

However, beware predictions of a nano stampede. What we are seeing is a cyclical wave of larger rounds for expansion and later stage companies combined with smaller rounds for newly funded companies, set against an overall uptick in venture funding. Although a slew of high profile nanotech funding announcements took place in the first quarter, the bulk of the year’s activity occurred in the second. Investors closed on $140.6 million in 17 rounds in the second quarter, compared with $108.8 million in 12 rounds in the first.

In a pattern reminiscent of late 2003 and early 2004, first and second quarter nanotech funding shifted somewhat toward expansion and later stage funding as a small cadre of startups appeared to prepare for the possibility of an exit window in 2006. Funding in the third quarter fell off somewhat, with 10 rounds accounting for $63.4 million.

Venture capital funding in the category of small tech – which comprises nanotechnology, MEMS and microsystems – is also on track to exceed 2004’s performance. In the first three quarters of 2005, investors deployed $812.8 million in 91 funding rounds, putting the category on track for its highest activity levels since 2001.

Who says nano companies can’t go public? Maybe they just can’t take the ordinary route. NaturalNano Inc., a Rochester, N.Y.-based nanomaterials company, began trading under the symbol NNAN in early December on the over-the-counter bulletin board system. The merger was accomplished by virtue of an existing public company, Cementitious Materials Inc., acquiring the privately held NaturalNano Inc. The new, combined company is called NaturalNano Inc.


NaturalNano CEO Michael Riedlinger says his company’s strategy is to become a specialty materials player.
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There were three major reasons for taking the reverse merger route, argued Michael Riedlinger, NaturalNano’s chief executive. The first, he said, is “it’s a real differentiator to be a publicly traded nanotechnology company.” When calling on potential clients, he said, being public gives him additional credibility.

The second, he said, was that a public company generally can raise additional cash on more favorable terms than its privately held counterparts. That may prove helpful later on when the company seeks more cash to expand.

And third, Riedlinger said, having one’s own currency provides the possibility of making acquisitions down the road without using cash, though he said such a strategy is not currently among his plans.

As for the way Riedlinger took his eight-person company public, he said that while a reverse merger certainly lacks the glamour of doing an initial public offering on the Nasdaq, it was a way he “could get public relatively quickly.” Shortly prior to the merger, NaturalNano completed a $4.2 million funding round that included mostly individual investors as well as German nanotech private equity firm Nanostart AG.

Next up is securing customers, Riedlinger said. The company is trying to find markets for what it calls naturally occurring nanotubes – halloysite clay mined by a partner in Utah. While Riedlinger thinks it will take two to three years to ramp up to large volume shipments, he said there may be some nearer-term opportunities improving the strength and fire retardance of polymer materials.

“There is also a fair amount of interest in RF shielding for composites,” he said. “Our view is that the RF shielding area is going to be higher margin.” To that end, he said he’s looking to break into aerospace where lightweight materials with high strength catch a premium.
– David Forman

PARTNERSHIPS


January 1, 2006

Accelrys Inc., a San Diego maker of scientific modeling software, announced a strategic relationship with Microsoft Corp. designed to meet demand for scientific software that runs on the Windows Compute Cluster Server 2003, Microsoft’s high-performance computing software.

Arrowhead Research Corp., a Pasadena, Calif., funder and developer of nanotechnology research and companies, announced that it will work with Duke University to develop nanotube-based interconnects as a replacement for copper in computer chips. Arrowhead has agreed to provide approximately $680,000 in funding over the next two years to develop the technology. In exchange, Arrowhead will have the exclusive right to license the resulting intellectual property and commercialize the process developed at Duke.

Clariant International Ltd., a Muttenz, Switzerland, specialty chemicals company, announced a broad-based strategic alliance with Starfire Systems Inc., a Malta, N.Y., developer of polymer-derived nanostructured ceramics. The joint effort will target such industries as automotive, aerospace, and microelectronics and work toward the development of new technology and applications in nanostructured ceramic materials and coatings.

Dendritic Nanotechnologies Inc. of Mt. Pleasant, Mich., and Lumera Corp. of Bothell, Wash., announced that they have entered into a joint research agreement to co-develop proprietary surface chemistries suitable for specific applications of Lumera’s label-free array reader, ProteomicProcessor. Under the agreement, Dendritic will build chemistries on proprietary Lumera surfaces, focusing efforts on using their expertise and patent holdings in the area of dendrimers. Lumera will use their proprietary instrument designs and biological systems to test and evaluate the dendrimer-based approaches.

Headwaters Inc. announced that DegussaHeadwaters, a joint venture of Degussa AG of Dusseldorf, Germany, and Headwaters of South Jordan, Utah, is building a demonstration plant for the direct synthesis of hydrogen peroxide in Hanau-Wolfgang, Germany. The company has been developing a new method of synthesizing hydrogen peroxide for direct use as an oxidant in chemical processes and intends to build, own and operate hydrogen peroxide plants for supply to chemical producers around the world. The process uses a nanocatalyst developed by Headwaters to react hydrogen and oxygen to form hydrogen peroxide.

NanoDynamics Inc. of Buffalo, N.Y., and ALD NanoSolutions Inc. of Broomfield, Colo., announced a partnership to develop coatings for electronics applications. NanoDynamics says that it has developed a new manufacturing approach, using ALD’s atomic layer deposition technology, to create uniform, nanometer thick coatings that encapsulate powders along with other elements. The company says the approach enables them to retain inherent thermal and conductive properties while eliminating reactivity and functionality issues.

Nano-Proprietary Inc. of Austin, Texas, announced that its subsidiary, Applied Nanotech Inc., entered into an agreement with Shimane Masuda Electronics Co. Ltd. in Japan to establish a joint pilot line for the development and production of carbon nanotube electron emission-based lighting devices. The pilot line will be located in Shimane Masuda’s facility and Shimane Masuda will supply all necessary equipment and personnel to develop, engineer, and operate the line. Applied Nanotech will contribute technical support, intellectual property, and know-how.

Sarnoff Corp. of Princeton, N.J., announced a five-year strategic agreement with ExxonMobil Research and Engineering Co. of Fairfax, Va., to explore commercialization opportunities for ExxonMobil’s portfolio of mesoporous materials for markets outside of the petrochemical industry. Under the agreement, Sarnoff will work with ExxonMobil to position the materials in markets such as electronics and optics.

US Modular, a designer and manufacturer of personal memory and storage products, announced a deal with QuantumSphere Inc. to develop high-performance batteries for consumer electronic equipment. QuantumSphere is a manufacturer of metallic nanopowders for applications in aerospace, defense, energy, electronics and other markets demanding advanced material applications. The two Irvine, Calif.-based companies will work together to develop high-performance, small form-factor, low-cost universal portable batteries for laptops, MP3 players, cell phones, and the next generation of media players.

Agilent Technologies Inc., the Palo Alto, Calif.-based test and measurement company, has become a player in the atomic force microscope market by acquiring Molecular Imaging Corp. of Tempe, Ariz.

The acquisition is expected to substantially increase the exposure of the Molecular Imaging AFM product line, according to company executives. In turn, said Vance Nau, president and CEO of Molecular Imaging, it will help his 40 staff members focus on their core tasks.

The company’s lead AFM product line is known as the PicoPlus family. The modular, high-resolution AFMs are used for imaging in fluids as well as ambient and controlled conditions. Current customers are mostly in drug discovery, life science, electrochemistry, materials science and polymer science.

Executives said the companies would seek to improve the capabilities of the product and simplify operations in order to address larger markets in the future. Long-term goals include creating a device that could be operated by a technician rather than a doctorate-level scientist, as well as developing application-specific units for uses like defect control in inline manufacturing.

Bob Burns, general manager of Agilent’s Nano Measurements Division, said Agilent would keep the Molecular Imaging team in Tempe because the company has strong ties with Arizona State University. Molecular Imaging was founded in 1993 by Stuart Lindsay and Tianwei Jing of Arizona State.
– David Forman

Schaumberg, Ill.-based American Pharmaceutical Partners Inc. is buying its majority shareholder, privately held American BioScience Inc. of Santa Monica, Calif., in an all-stock deal. The new company will be called Abraxis BioScience and will own global rights to Abraxane, a nanoparticle-based breast cancer drug as well as other technologies.

Aviza Technology Inc., a Scotts Valley, Calif., supplier of thermal process and atomic layer deposition systems, and Trikon Technologies Inc., a Newport, Wales-based provider of plasma etching and deposition systems for the semiconductor and MEMS industries, announced the closing of their consolidation through merger. The combined company is known as Aviza Technology Inc.

Bruker AXS, a Madison, Wis., maker of analytical X-ray systems, closed on two previously announced acquisitions, that of Roentec AG and the X-ray microanalysis business of Princeton Gamma-Tech Instruments Inc. Bruker combined the two units into a newly created Bruker AXS Microanalysis business unit.

Measurement Specialties Inc., a Hampton, Va., designer and manufacturer of sensors and sensor-based consumer products, announced it has acquired the capital stock of HL Planartechnik GmbH, a sensor company located in Dortmund, Germany, for $7.1 million. HL Planartechnik specializes in thin-film metallization processes, producing sensors in a variety of categories.

Nanoforce Technologies Inc. of Clearwater, Fla., entered into an agreement to acquire Refinery Science Corp., a company based in El Paso, Texas, that uses nanotechnology for the extraction and refinement of oil reserves. The company says its technology will help it extract low quality crude oil, such as that from shale and sand, in a cost-efficient and productive process that can compete with light crude refining costs.

Rite Track, a West Chester, Ohio, manufacturer of track systems for the MEMS industry, announced the acquisition of online equipment broker SemiSurplus.com. The acquisition is intended to give the company another source for the components it uses in its business and provides it with more flexibility in daily operations. SemiSurplus.com will operate as a wholly owned subsidiary of Rite Track.