Tag Archives: Small Times Magazine

To be summa cum laude


January 1, 2006

Not long ago, it was a rarity for a university to include a program dedicated to nanotechnology on its roster. But in recent years, graduate-level and even undergraduate-level classes and degrees have cropped up in institutions across the globe. Nanotechnology’s rising profile has created opportunities – and challenges – for universities, as directors of three programs explain in an exchange with Small Times’ Candace Stuart.

Q: Are educational institutions with nanotechnology programs in a global competition for students and faculty? Is that a recent phenomenon? What has fueled this competition?


Wade Adams
Director,
Center for Nanoscale Science and Technology, Rice University
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ADAMS: Yes. It is not really recent; it is as longstanding as nano is – say 15 years. There has always been competition, and the intensity ebbs and flows with factors like the economy of the U.S., immigration and visa laws, etc.

The rapid growth of nanotech has fueled the competition. Rice was the first nanotech center, and now there are more than 130 in the U.S. in academia alone. Everyone wants to hire faculty and find students, and the flow of foreign students has been (hopefully temporarily) slowed, so there are fewer total students available.

KALOYEROS: The global competition for faculty and students has intensified due to: (1) the lack of an adequate pool of faculty and professionals with training in nanoscience and nanoengineering; (2) the push by states, countries and regions to build research university-based high tech economies; and (3) the increasingly higher value placed on human intellectual capital as a primary innovation driver. However, the UAlbany College of Nanoscale Science and Engineering (CNSE) has focused on collaboration instead of competition by building cross-border and cross-continent partnerships that leverage combined resources and maximize return on investment.

SIVOTHTHAMAN: Suitable students are out there. I think it is rather a question of being an institution with high reputation. As far as faculty hiring is concerned, yes, there is some competition. In new initiatives involving research-intensive and emerging areas, you want to attract, hire, and retain top-notch researchers.

Q: How are you recruiting students and faculty? What methods have proven successful and unsuccessful?


Alain Kaloyeros
President, Albany NanoTech;
VP, College of Nanoscale Science and Engineering, University at Albany-SUNY
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ADAMS: Via individual faculty members in their departments. CNST (Center for Nanoscale Science and Technology) doesn’t have a recruiting program, per se, but we send prospective students to the appropriate department. We are also starting some specific international collaborative programs.

Nothing beats direct personal knowledge and word-of-mouth recommendations for finding and attracting great students. Also, good research and publications lead to good student and faculty interest.

KALOYEROS: The UAlbany CNSE has developed a proactive recruitment strategy for faculty and students. We found that targeted and personalized attraction efforts that are customized to the interests and needs of specific candidates are extremely effective. In contrast, generic “one-size-fits-all” recruitment methods have been largely a failure.

SIVOTHTHAMAN: Our undergraduate program in nanotechnology engineering is unique and new; the first batch of our nanotech undergraduate students joined the university last fall (2005). We did present the program initiative in high schools and university fairs. We received a huge number of applications, and we now have the top students in our program. For recruiting faculty, we reach out through highly reputed journals and the Web.

Q: Which ranks as your top priority and why: advancing basic knowledge in nanoscience and technology; advancing technical knowledge; developing technologies for commercialization; or developing a trained workforce?


Siva Sivoththaman
Director of nanotechnology engineering,
University of Waterloo
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ADAMS: In a big institute such as CNST (110 faculty), all are important. Some faculty are better known for basic science and engineering, while others are noted entrepreneurs. All are interested in producing trained and educated nanotech graduates (without a nanotech degree, however.) And we publish a lot and obtain patents, too.

KALOYEROS: There is no question in that advancing basic knowledge is the essential enabling ingredient and, as such, ranks as our top priority. Advancement of basic knowledge ensures exploration and discovery of the critical innovations needed to develop a sound technical knowledge and execute viable commercialization paths. Also, it provides an optimized pathway for educating and training the skilled nanotechnology savvy workforce. But all four outcomes are important.

SIVOTHTHAMAN: Very tempting to say “all!” Nanotech at Waterloo is multifaceted. We have an undergraduate program initiative and a strong research initiative. We are looking at an area that is highly interdisciplinary, already into several industry sectors, and yet, still emerging and expanding. Therefore, each of those four outcomes is important. If I am to pick one I would pick advancing basic knowledge in nanoscience and technology.

Q: Do most of the students in your nano programs stay in the region after they graduate? If not, where do they go and why?

ADAMS: We haven’t studied this numerically, but we don’t offer a B.S. or Ph.D. in nano, only a master’s degree in nanoscale physics that is part business. Those grads have mostly stayed in the area and are in companies. Our Ph.D.s are split among business (maybe 50 percent stay local) and academia (postdocs, mostly go), with a few to national labs.

KALOYEROS: The career path followed by our students has run the geographical and professional gamut of employment opportunities in the high tech industry. The lion’s share of our students has been heavily recruited by the major international nanoelectronics corporations across the U.S. and the world. However, a rapidly increasing percentage is choosing to remain in New York’s Hudson Valley.

SIVOTHTHAMAN: It’s mixed. The region itself is Canada’s Technology Triangle Area and a significant number stay. There is also an increasing interest in grad programs. One of the advantages of the co-op nature of Waterloo’s undergraduate education is that our students are exposed to opportunities at an early stage.

Q: What do you see as the greatest weakness in your institution’s nano initiative?

ADAMS: The interdisciplinarity of nano is the root of its greatest potential and its greatest challenges. Universities are almost all organized around departments of a single discipline. Education, and to some extent research, occurs within the framework of departments, even in the universities that are most successful at fostering interdisciplinary research. How to best support interdisciplinary initiatives, given that departments are almost certain to remain the fundamental organizing unit of most campuses, is one of the most significant challenges facing universities today.

KALOYEROS: This is a difficult question to answer, particularly as CNSE has only been in operation since April 2004. Probably the biggest challenge we faced is name recognition within the traditional academic community.

SIVOTHTHAMAN: By looking at the way we are expanding in strategic areas, I think we are on the right path.

Q: Is your institution getting support from your regional and/or national governments ? If so, in what form?

ADAMS: State: no money, lots of enthusiasm. National: research funding steady but very much effort required to win grants. We receive some special appropriations for equipment support through a multi-university consortium that requires a lot of effort to sustain.

Our program was built a decade ago by (Nobel Laureate) Rick Smalley and supporters by raising a substantial fund of private money that built a new building, endowed new professorships, endowed a couple of postdoc positions, and provided a startup fund for equipment purchase. We haven’t had another campaign like that, but it may be time to do it again.

KALOYEROS: The leadership of the state of New York has been instrumental in the establishment within CNSE of the intellectual assets and state-of-the-art facilities necessary to successfully create and sustain a highly competitive program. The state of New York has invested more than $600 million [along with industry and federal funding] to create a $3 billion nanotechnology mega-complex.

SIVOTHTHAMAN: Both provincial and national governments have been strongly supporting our institution in accomplishing our goals. Industry participation is a must in almost all government support programs. This combination of government/industry support is key to building our competitive programs.

Q: Are you collaborating with industry in research or education? How does that help you achieve your goals?

ADAMS: We have a number of industry-sponsored research programs that support faculty members by providing money for grad students or postdocs, and we are negotiating for more sponsorships. We are doing a short course for one company and have requests for two-to-three hour topical short courses, as well. We are also working with companies to help develop a community/technical college program for associate degrees in nanotechnology.

Our goals are to provide education and research in nanotechnology, and to transfer that to the world. Industry assists greatly in achieving those goals.

KALOYEROS: CNSE has already established successful research and education partnerships with more than 150 computer nanochip producers, equipment manufacturers, materials suppliers and OEMs. In addition, the CNSE complex houses major R&D operations with leading nanoelectronics concerns.

Our collaborations have ensured the establishment of the resources necessary for our faculty and students to conduct cutting-edge research and education activities.

SIVOTHTHAMAN: We have several industry-funded research projects, industrial research chairs and also partnership programs involving industry and government. Our recent multimillion dollar research infrastructures are partly supported by industry. Our education program also benefits from industry in terms of scholarships, assistantships, teaching labs, and of course co-op.

For embryonic technologies such as nanotechnology, intellectual property (IP) has become intricately complicated, like building at the nanoscale. Nanotechnology patent filings continue to proliferate and are extremely competitive, which adds to the complexity. These days, one business commentator will complain that patents have become too powerful. The next commentary will then express dismay that the system is too weak. We hear concern, if not angst, about nanotechnology patent thickets, although patent thickets have been around for a long time.

Despite all the rigmarole over patents, the patent system has become central to nanotechnology. This is particularly true for small, emerging companies for which IP assets are a large part of corporate value, particularly if they can establish IP dominance. U.S. leadership in nanotechnology is directly linked to its complex but effective Bayh-Dole system for technology transfer to the marketplace through patent licensing to small companies. In this complex environment, businesses need answers for patent, licensing and deal issues. To help, we provide some practical tips on patent strategy and execution, as well as some updates.

Patent strategy. At least two strategic themes emerge for any patent strategy. First, aggressively generate base corporate value by regular buildup of the nanotechnology portfolio, which will provide the company with assets valued by the market. Establish legally sound IP domination. Second, do not forget to add seasoning; generate additional value with targeted, strategic filings. For example, file patent applications before beginning work on a joint development agreement to protect the company as others gain access to the technology.

If your company is based on patent licensing under the Bayh-Dole system, become knowledgeable about Bayh-Dole. The system provides an IP base for companies to exploit, but companies must know the limits. For example, understand domestic manufacturing requirements, reporting compliance and government rights in the invention. Companies working with universities should assume control of the patent prosecution as early as possible.

Broad patent prioritization should be carried out. For example, patents should be crudely ranked for corporate value (like the latest top 20 sports poll). Do not blindly file and maintain patent applications, but proactively map applications against product development plans (and competitors’ products) on a country-by-country basis so that unnecessary filings can be pruned.

Avoid being blindsided by monitoring for competitive patents. For example, valuable technology insights can be gleaned from competitive patents. Licensing and joint development opportunities can be uncovered. Another compelling reason: Investors want it.

Execution. The best patent strategy may not mean much without practical execution. Managing a patent portfolio is not easy, as the task is filled with details and deadlines. Recognize that patenting is a highly specialized process and requires help from outside counsel.

Companies should file all patent applications, including provisional patent applications that are strong enough to contain the essence of the invention, using solid attorney input. Weak provisional filings represent lost opportunities to generate corporate value. They can damage later attempts to protect the technology, and can undermine the IP value. Also, companies should execute honestly with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (PTO) to avoid later charges of inequitable conduct.

Patent updates. The PTO continues to develop a more rigorous, quality-based examination system. This includes creation of a nanotechnology classification system, 977. The number of patents in 977 now stands at more than 2,600. The first PTO-classified nanotechnology patent to issue was filed in 1974 (No. 4,107,288). Looking to the future, the PTO granted Zyvex a 977 patent on self-replicating manufacturing stations (No. 6,510,359). IP figured prominently in recent transitions at NaturalNano and Quantum Dot.

Patenting requires hard work to reap the rewards of the investment. When Nobel Laureate Richard Feynman kicked off nanotechnology in 1959 with his “Room at the Bottom” speech, he certainly did not have in mind the work required by the modern U.S. patent system – he talked more about having fun. Feynman envisioned that scientists would compete to build nanostructures motivated by human qualities other than money. However, he also recognized the motivating role of money and established a financial award for building the first small-scale motor.

In the same way, patents provide an economic incentive to build at the nanoscale. Nanotechnology’s creative genius is a fountainhead of the U.S. economy. Through patents, companies should protect the genius behind these nanotechnology miracles.

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Stephen Maebius is a partner and Steven Rutt is an associate at Foley & Lardner LLP. They can be reached at [email protected] and at [email protected].

Consumer Demands


January 1, 2006

Uncovering the profits and pitfalls in five key markets

For companies both big and small, consumer markets beckon like few others. They are huge, dynamic and offer an enticing array of both high-margin and price-competitive categories. But their glimmering appeal can quickly turn into a siren song if they are misunderstood, and all their benefits melt into problems.

Micro and nanotechnology entrepreneurs and executives have found consumer markets to be profit centers, PR platforms and, in some cases, surprisingly easy to penetrate. As you’ll see in the following pages, they have also bashed headlong into the challenges these markets provide.


From lipstick to laundry, micro and nanotech are already pervading diverse consumer markets.
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Manufacturability is key that opens electronics markets

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Micro and nanotech have a broad array of applications in consumer electronics, many of which have already made it onto store shelves. Texas Instruments’ DLP projection system, now a common big-screen TV technology, has at its core a postage-stamp size array of MEMS mirrors. Kodak has sold digital cameras with organic LED screens. And a bevy of electronics and semiconductor companies are exploring a variety of nanomaterials and nanoscale processing techniques in a never-ending quest to shrink the size, increase the speed and lower the power consumption of consumer electronic devices.

The allure is obvious. Consumer electronics markets are already huge and growing fast, and are accustomed to embracing innovation. Global revenue from sales of semiconductors – the processor and memory chips that drive all those gadgets – set an all-time record of $235 billion in 2005, according to market research firm Gartner Inc. Whereas some markets are used as stepping stones to get to the gold at the end of the rainbow, consumer electronics usually is the pot of gold.

But, say experts, bridging the gap from a prototype to a finished product is notoriously difficult, especially in semiconductors where it is difficult to convince a manufacturing partner to deviate from standard processes.

“You have to develop a process that is very easy to manufacture and that doesn’t require the purchase of any new equipment,” said Greg Schmergel, CEO of Nantero Inc., a Woburn, Mass., company developing a new kind of memory technology using ribbons of carbon nanotubes.

Most manufacturing facilities are averse to introducing new, exotic materials into their production lines, he said. Since they make money by taking advantage of massive economies of scale – running many companies’ different products through the same equipment – any kind of equipment contamination from a customer’s product could be catastrophic for their bottom line.

While Schmergel’s company has been successful in establishing working relationships with two production fabrication facilities, many startups report having a tough time finding a manufacturer willing to spend time developing a product and, perhaps, mentoring the startup’s management team. Instead, these startups get caught in a Catch 22 between using university labs to create a prototype and big foundries that only want to work with startups that have proven their process.

“The way that some companies have tried to do this is to have a relationship with a big partner,” said Richard Carter, the business director for INEX of Newcastle, England. But he believes there is a middle way. INEX is a publicly funded organization that provides micro and nanofabrication prototyping, medium volume manufacturing and commercialization support services. It will help a partner get up and running and, at the appropriate time, help source additional manufacturing capacity and transfer a process to a high volume manufacturer.

In his experience working with micro and nanotech entrepreneurs, Carter said, he has found that many develop innovative new products without investigating market demand. He turns them away but if it’s a promising technology, he encourages them to go back and find out where it would be best put to use.

In other cases, even if an entrepreneur understands the necessity of matching an innovation with a market need, he is likely to not understand the perils and pitfalls of manufacturing. Concepts like design for manufacturability, or the vast difference between making a single device and making millions of them, are generally not part of scientific training, he said.

His organization tries to fill that gap by helping shepherd innovation from lab to fab – currently about a dozen at a time – with realistic expectations. “We sometimes have to work to get our partners to agree that their design is not necessarily the best one,” he said. “That discussion becomes a screening process.” Those researchers who “get it” move forward. The others don’t.
– David Forman

Retailers drive demand for textiles, clothing

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Until recently, the only thing that high tech and textiles had in common was a similar sounding syllable. The introduction of Nano-Tex’s fabric-enhancing technologies about six years ago proved that there was room for innovation in the age-old industry.

“Apparel is a soft industry,” said Donn Tice, Nano-Tex’s chief executive officer. “There was no reason for people to buy anything new. We gave the customer a reason to buy something new.”

California-based Nano-Tex has developed a series of products that wrap or bind to fibers to give them desirable traits. Its additives can be used to make fabrics water repellent, stain resistant or wrinkle-free. Since its founding in 1999, Nano-Tex signed deals with more than 80 mills across the globe and its technology has been incorporated into more than 100 clothing and interior furnishing brands. The company is also targeting home products and automotive upholstery.

While textiles may be an old industry, it is still a lucrative one. The World Trade Organization estimated that in 2004 textile exports totaled $195 billion. Clothing netted another $450 billion. Tice, a veteran in the textiles and clothing industries, knows there are profits to be had.

“We’ve really just scratched the surface of apparel,” Tice said. “There’s an untapped opportunity.”

Nano-Tex faces competition, especially in Asia. U-Right International Holdings of Hong Kong introduced nanocoatings for making fabrics stain and water repellent in 2001. It claimed that by 2003 its products had been incorporated into handbags, shoes, toys and home furnishings. It established a prototype processing facility in Shenzhen in China’s Guangdong province that year and set up another processing center in Nanchang of Jiangxi province in 2005.


Nano-Tex supplies a kit to Brooks Brothers stores that allows sales clerks to demonstrate its liquid and stain resistance in ties. Photo courtesy of Nano-Tex.
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In the meantime, Hong Kong Poly-technic University’s Institute of Textiles and Clothing has created a nanotechnology center to infuse nanoscale advances into the industry. The more futuristic Institute for Soldier Nanotechnologies at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology has brought together academic researchers and companies like DuPont, Raytheon and Triton Systems for projects to design, among other things, protective “smart materials” for troops.

The MEMS industry has recognized opportunity in textiles as well. Semiconductor company Infineon Technologies AG partnered with the carpet business Vorwerk Teppichwerke to develop what they call “thinking carpets.” The two German companies want to market electronically networked sensor-studded carpeting that can detect security breaches or be used in climate control systems.

They unveiled a prototype in 2004 and said the project needed at least two more years of development before a market launch was feasible.

Tice is taking innovation in the competitive textile market a step further. Nano-Tex continues to develop new products, court mills and brand-name clothing manufacturers and look for opportunities to work with universities and government agencies like the Army’s Natick Soldier Systems Center in Massachusetts.

But Tice has expanded his concept of “customer.” He and his marketing team are going directly to big-box retailers like Target and Bed Bath & Beyond to tell them about the benefits of nano-enhanced products. Their goal is to convince merchants that they’ll attract more consumers by offering napkins, placemats, pillows and other home items that carry nano-added attributes.

In turn, the merchants will order their suppliers to incorporate Nano-Tex’s products into their product lines. It’s a strategy that Tice expects will propel Nano-Tex above the competition.

“We realized that while mills are an important production partner, they don’t make the buying decisions,” Tice said. “They can’t influence more than what they buy and sell. … It’s the retailers who are making the decisions.”
– Candace Stuart

Construction offers foundations for growth

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Stuart Burchill didn’t intend to go anywhere near building materials. The president of Industrial Nanotech Inc. was having enough fun selling Nansulate, a composite insulation applied in liquid form.

“We actually thought the building materials market would be more difficult because of the codes,” he said.

So when building materials manufacturers came calling in response to hearing about Nansulate, he didn’t expect the conversation would go far. He was pleasantly surprised to learn that as long as his product met the existing specifications for what was currently on the market, then it could be approved.

Although he won’t disclose what product he is working on, Burchill said it uses a reformulation of the company’s insulating product. The coating is factory-applied to a building material to increase the material’s insulating ability. Think sheet rock or roof tiles – or really anything that covers a wide swathe of a structure and would benefit by being better insulated.

Once he saw that building codes wouldn’t prevent him from addressing the market, Burchill said he realized the building materials market would fit neatly into his plans. “From the very beginning my concept was to go after economies of scale. …One of the beauties of the building industry is that until we get zero percent population growth this huge market is just going to keep growing.” That’s not going to happen, he said, without a big partner willing to help him establish the manufacturing ability.

If finding an opportunity in the market was a surprise, so was the attitude of the partner. Burchill expected the company to be tough and demanding – in short, to flaunt the extraordinary leverage it had in the relationship. Surprise number two: the partner was open, collaborative and willing to share proprietary information about processes and market opportunity forecasts.

In fact, Burchill said he thinks tight collaboration can help his company overcome one of the major challenges ahead. The huge size of the building materials market is both a blessing and curse. “You have to be able to come out of the gate at huge capacity.”

Chris Tagge, president of Innovative Construction and Building Materials LLC (ICBM), anticipates the same need to ramp up in massive volumes. “That’s a big challenge you wouldn’t have with, say, a healthcare product.”

But, like Burchill, Tagge thinks the benefits outweigh the costs, especially if you take advantage of certain inherent features of the building materials market. “The good thing is that they’ve been around so long, they’re so mature, that there’s a lot of companies out there looking for product differentiation.” A startup that can provide a quantifiable performance improvement can help a customer create a premium product – or improve the performance of more commodity-like materials.

Berkeley, Calif.-based ICBM is working in a variety of building products areas. It has projects under way to improve the strength-to-weight ratio of drywall, to create high-efficiency but low-pressure air filters, as well as in other areas, although Tagge said he is not ready to discuss details.

Tagge said building materials offer some other challenges that his company had not originally foreseen. “These are materials, in some cases, that have been around for thousands of years,” he said, citing concrete as an example. “Everybody is making things slightly differently.” As a result, companies seeking to enhance such products must make sure their processes are sufficiently flexible to accommodate all the variations out there.

Despite the industry’s yearning for performance improvements, he said, expect some skepticism. “You have to remember that these are companies that have gone through asbestos, so they are very sensitive to new technologies.” Therefore, anyone thinking to address the building materials market should be ready to show not just how their product yields a performance improvement but also that it is safe – in manufacturing, in use, and even when demolished.
– David Forman

Sports can make nano a player in other markets

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The origins of golf trace back to the Middle Ages, when Scots devised a game that required players to hit a ball with a stick into holes in the ground. The sport developed a set of rules in the mid-1700s that still dictate its fundamentals. But while the game itself hasn’t changed much, its equipment continues to become increasingly sophisticated.

The sporting goods industry knows some consumers will pay premium prices for incremental improvements. As a result, manufacturers have embraced nanotechnology. Consumers can now buy bouncier tennis balls, more responsive tennis rackets, more adhesive ski wax, swifter bowling balls, stronger bicycles, sturdier baseball bats and even golf balls that are less inclined to wayward wobbles. And nanotechnology companies have welcomed the exposure that the market provided.

“Sporting goods was the first to adopt carbon fiber,” said Marni Rutkofsky, a chemist at Zyvex Corp. in Richardson, Texas. It was also among the first industries to see commercial value in carbon nanotubes.

In 2004, Zyvex announced that Easton Sports would incorporate its NanoSolve carbon nanotube technology into bicycle components to make them stronger. A year later, Easton unveiled a new line of baseball bats based on the same technology. Easton said the bats offered an improved handle design, more flex capability and gave sluggers a better “kick” when they hit a baseball.

The high-profile deal has given Zyvex a kick as well. “We gained exposure into other markets,” Rutkofsky said. “It’s given us an edge.”

Some nanomaterial companies supply ingredients such as nanoclays that become integrated into final products. Zyvex works with suppliers of raw materials and the end users who want to take advantage of those materials’ superior properties. Easton, for instance, desired strong and durable composites to make tougher seat posts, handlebars and other parts. Zyvex applied its technology to carbon nanotubes, which are renown for their strength, to ensure the tubes would disperse and otherwise be compatible in a composite.


NanoDynamics’ hollow golf ball design helps reasonably skilled players keep shots on the fairway. But it can’t correct for duffers’ mistakes. Image courtesy of NanoDynamics.
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“A lot of what people want us to do is select the right nanomaterial,” said Lance Criscuolo, manager of worldwide sales at Zyvex. “We provide the product and streamline it into (their) production.”

Keith Blakely, chief executive officer at NanoDynamics in Buffalo, N.Y., had another motivation for developing a nanotechnology-based golf ball. As the founder of the tech company ART Inc., Blakely had found focus and messaging were critical to success. NanoDynamics specializes in nanomaterials and ways to commercialize them.

“At ART, I learned the best way to sell materials was to develop one or two niche products,” he said. “You need a performance metric (to explain to potential customers) why they may want to select a new material. Simply coming out and saying it’s new won’t work.”

NanoDynamics is working on portable solid oxide fuel cells, a path that has allowed it to demonstrate nanomaterials’ attributes to a select market. Blakely saw an opportunity to reach a wider audience when he was approached with an option to develop a nano-based golf ball with a radical design: a hollow metal core that shifts the weight of the ball to its outside for straighter drives and putts. NanoDynamics found that by controlling the grain size of nanomaterials, it could give the core its required strength.

“I wanted to generate publicity around this,” Blakely said, and he succeeded. “We get calls from design engineers from the aerospace and automotive industries. It’s allowed us to communicate with a broader audience about skills that they might not otherwise hear about.”

Blakely got more than exposure; he got a golf ball that meets industry standards. NanoDynamics began beta testing its golf balls in June of 2005 and started selling them on its Web site later that year. Blakely is now in discussions with golf ball manufacturers.
– Candace Stuart

Cosmetics offers low hanging fruit – at a price

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The skin care market provides a number of simultaneous opportunities and challenges for nanomaterials suppliers. On the plus side, say analysts and executives, are three things: It is easier to get into skin care than other markets. It provides great visibility to other potential customers and consumers. And formulations can often serve a dual use in skin care and some other market.

On the down side, it’s an industry where customers can be overly demanding and public impressions about nanotech’s health and safety effects – whether accurate or not – could have a dramatic impact.

“In terms of Optisol,” said Kevin Matthews, the chief executive of Oxfordshire, England-based Oxonica, “the trick was getting the first product launched with Boots.”

The breakthrough came in February 2005, when Boots Group, a 68,000-employee English health and beauty retailer, incorporated Oxonica’s Optisol ultraviolet absorber into a range of facial suncare products. “Once they put it into one of their lines,” said Matthews, “we began talking with major cosmetics houses.”

Matthews said his strategy in skin care is no different than any other: identify a market opportunity, develop a patented offering and outsource manufacturing. “The bottom line is you need to be able to build a real business from it.”

However, according to Matthews and other nanomaterials company executives, a smart strategy includes commercializing nanomaterials for skin care while targeting the same materials toward other, unrelated markets.

“The markets must complement each other,” said Paul McCormick, chief executive of Advanced Nanotechnology Ltd., a nanomaterials developer based in Welshpool, Australia. In his company’s case, it uses the same zinc oxide nanoparticle in its ZinClear UV absorber for skin care products as it does for its nanoZ industrial protective coatings. “It’s the same kind of product put into different oils,” he said.


Oxonica’s Optisol UV absorber was incorporated into skin care products in 2005. Photo courtesy of Oxonica.
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The skin care market has its peculiarities. In cosmetics, the waiting time to get into the business is very short, said McCormick, adding that the formulations and testing are relatively easy compared to working in other markets. “Industrial contracts take longer to get but are better for the long term.”

But while those cosmetics contracts might be easier to get, they also come at a price. “They want to give you an order today,” McCormick said, “and you provide the nanomaterials tomorrow.”

The market is growing rapidly, but its relatively small size suggests that in the future it will remain the same sort of near-term, modest revenue opportunity for nanomaterials providers that it is today. Global retail sales of nanoparticle-containing skin care products were worth $360 million in 2004, according to Andrew McWilliams, a research analyst who covers advanced materials for the market research firm Business Communications Co. But the actual commercial sales of the nanomaterials that went into those products only added up to $14 million for the year.

“There is increasing demand for the high-end (skin care) products,” McWilliams said, which will drive demand for the nanomaterials that provide enhanced capabilities. However, he expects the nano component to remain a small fraction of the total market value. He forecasts that nano-enhanced skin care products will increase to $1.42 billion by 2010, while the commercial nanomaterials sales will rise to $55 million in 2010.

McWilliams brings up another peculiarity of the market. Since they are used on the body, the cosmetics and related skin care product markets are also among those most vulnerable to any negative connotations of nanotechnology. “That perception that nano is unhealthy and should be regulated is sort of out there on the fringes,” McWilliams said. “All it would take is one incident.&rdquo
– David Forman

Don’t forget the consumer in ‘consumer market’
By Candace Stuart

Advanced Nanotechnology Ltd. didn’t have to persuade consumers to slather on sunscreens containing its zinc oxide nanoparticles. In its homeland of Australia, the dermatologists did the talking.

“Australia knows more about sunscreens than most countries do,” said Brian Innes, business development manager at Advanced Nanotechnology. For good reason: A mere 15 minutes of exposure to sun on a clear January day can lead to sunburn if skin is unprotected. That’s one reason why annually skin cancer accounts for more than 80 percent of all new cancers diagnosed in the nation, according to the Cancer Council of Australia. Melanoma kills about 1,300 Australians a year.

Given those statistics, consumers and the doctors who advise them seem willing to accept the potential risks of using sunscreens that incorporate ZinClear nanoparticles.

“This was driven by the dermatologists,” Innes said. “They wanted to have a transparent, mineral-only sunscreen.”


The Wilson Center’s David Rejeski predicts some companies will put a “nano-free” label on products. Photo courtesy of the Woodrow Wilson Center.
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Based in Welshpool in Western Australia, Advanced Nanotechnology has made its mark by producing uniform batches of nanoparticles since its launch in 1997. It decided to expand beyond its initial market of slurries after 2000.

Zinc oxide, an ingredient in sunscreens that absorbs damaging ultraviolet light, appeared like a good candidate. Standard-sized particles scatter visible light waves, giving sunscreens their characteristic pasty color. At the nanoscale, however, zinc oxide still absorbs ultraviolet light but lets visible light through, making it clear.

Concerns about short-term and long-term health effects of nanoparticles have been increasing as more nano-based products reach the market, analysts say. Consumer acceptance will depend on perceptions of the relative safety and benefits of products. In Australia, for instance, consumers may conclude that the benefits of a transparent sunscreen outweigh the unknown consequences of exposure to nanoparticles.

“Most consumers don’t expect to live in a zero-risk world,” said David Rejeski, director of the Project on Emerging Nanotechnologies, a partnership between the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars and the Pew Charitable Trusts. “Consumers are saying, ‘What’s in this for us?’”

But unlike Advanced Nanotechnology, many of the nanotech companies hoping to dip into the consumer market will not have advocates like the dermatologists of Australia. They lack a clear message – or some critics contend, any message at all.

In a November hearing at the U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Science, Minnesota’s Rep. Gil Gutknecht compared nano companies’ communication efforts to the agriculture industry’s attempts to introduce genetic modification into food crops. “Those companies did a marvelous job of selling the technology to the farmers, but they did a miserable job of explaining it to the consumers,” he noted.

Rejeski, who was a witness at the hearing, said that he expects to see more interest from what he terms “inquisitive consumers.” They are people who are not antagonistic toward new technologies but wish to know more before they buy nano goods. “Most of these companies have no strategy for dealing with the inquisitive consumer,” he said.

He recommends that the industry engage in pre-competitive research on communication strategies to eliminate what he sees as mixed, jargon-filled or conflicting messaging. Adding to the confusion is a tendency by some of the press, grass-roots organizations and even toxicologists to group all nanoparticles together. “Ambiguity raises anxiety” in consumers, he warned.

Alan Rae, vice president of market and business development at NanoDynamics in Buffalo, N.Y., and a participant in industry-shaping nano initiatives, said that discussions about public awareness and concerns about public backlash bubble up. But organizations such as the American National Standards Institute, where he is a delegate in a committee on nanotechnology, are better suited to tackle technical challenges rather than public outreach.

“One of the issues is there is no one actually responsible for it,” Rae said. Consumer education doesn’t fit the role of governmental bodies such as the U.S. National Nanotechnology Initiative. While the European Commission has taken a lead in efforts to raise public awareness, Rae and Rejeski point out that the public remains generally skeptical of governments worldwide.

“The governments are discredited,” Rae said. “And industry is seen as having a vested interest. So the platform is left to people who don’t want to see any change at all.”

Rejeski predicts a similar outcome if no communication strategy is in place. He envisions a “nano-free” movement with companies applying a “no-nano” label to set their products apart in consumers’ eyes. “As soon as there is a no-name label, it sends the message that there is a risk,” he said.

Even companies like Advanced Nanotechnology voice concerns about a backlash. “There’s always a question mark out there,” Innes said, “particularly in this environment where nanoparticles tend to get lumped together.”

By Genevieve Oger

For investors, selecting which nanotechnologies to favor over others can be a little like looking into a marble ball to see what the future holds. The European Commission wants to take some of the guesswork out of the equation. That’s why it has invested about $800,000 to draw up a nano roadmap aimed at identifying the technologies most likely to develop into applications by 2015.

“Roadmaps are key to defining Europe’s research policy,” said Renzo Tomellini, head of the nanotechnology unit at the European Commission. “They serve to identify areas of interest and contribute to establishing priorities in future research actions.”

At issue is the European Union’s 7th Framework Program, a research budget of almost $90 billion to be spent on scientific and technological research between 2007 and 2013, $5.8 billion of which is to be allotted to nano projects. Individual European member states and private businesses are expected to invest in projects as well.

The final roadmap was handed to the European Commission in December. It featured three individual nano plans: one on the future of materials, one on health and medical applications and a third on energy. The document of a few hundred pages was a collaborative pan-European effort. Nanotec IT, the Italian Center for Nanotechnology, acted as coordinator, working with groups in France, Germany, the Netherlands, Spain, the UK, the Czech Republic, Finland and Israel. Elvio Mantovani, Nanotec IT’s managing director, said the nano roadmap looks only 10 years into the future because it wants to be as accurate as possible.

“Any prediction is difficult, but the farther you look into the future, the less reliable the prediction becomes,” Mantovani said. “A shorter time frame is safer, but still a prediction.”

The partners began the project two years ago by sending a detailed questionnaire to about 350 nano experts worldwide. About 60 percent of them responded. Answers were analyzed and formed the basis of a second questionnaire sent to the same experts for confirmation and further probing. Ottilia Saxl, chief executive of the Scotland-based Institute of Nanotechnology and one of the roadmap partners, said the second round of questioning was crucial to getting an accurate picture.

“There is a tendency for experts working on solar energy to say solar energy will be the most important in the future, those working on wind power will say wind power, and those working on nuclear will say nuclear,” she said, explaining that sending the second questionnaire helped draw up a more comprehensive view of things to come.

The European Union commissioned the roadmap and funded 80 percent of it for its own use. But the document will be publicly available online. The idea is to share the information so that small- and medium-size businesses, research institutions and the public can benefit.

The roadmap isn’t going to add to the strategy of large chemical companies like Degussa or BASF, “because they have people working on this kind of thing internally,” said Laszlo Bax, partner at Willems and Van den Wildenberg, R & D strategic consultants in the Netherlands and Spain and roadmap partners. “But there is a huge number of companies below that mark who need this information and can’t afford to carry it out.”

The roadmap team adopted a pragmatic, application-based approach. Transforming research into marketable products is one of Europe’s top priorities and one of the region’s shortcomings. Europeans are generally good at producing top-notch research and nanotech-related scientific publications. But they haven’t been as effective at transforming this knowledge into products and services, through patents and startups. According to the European Commission, European companies apply for 170 patents a year per million people, compared with 400 for American companies. The EU imports $28 billion more high tech products than it exports.

Large multinational organizations like the European Commission sometimes get flack for spending too much time and energy doing research, instead of focusing their resources on real work. But Bax contends that spending a little bit on research ensures funding is allocated more efficiently. “Any money you invest in research to prune the different aspects of current research is better spent than funding projects with less focus.”


Linda Horton
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Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Tennessee broke ground on its Center for Nanophase Materials Sciences (CNMS) in the summer of 2003. The $65 million center became the first of the Department of Energy’s five facilities to open its doors to users when it welcomed researchers from industry, universities and other institutions in late 2005. Seagate, Luna Innovations and NanoTek are among the companies that have already taken advantage of its lab and nanofabrication facility. In an interview with Small Times’ Candace Stuart, director Linda Horton discusses how the center builds off Oak Ridge’s existing strengths and capabilities, and how it will help the nanotechnology community grow in the near future.

Q: Why did Oak Ridge select nanophase materials as the focus of its center?

We chose nanophase materials because Oak Ridge has a number of strengths, including a very large program that focuses on bulk materials. We were recognizing that 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. That was one of the drivers: recognizing that Oak Ridge has a very large materials science and chemical science program.

Q: Does the center also complement your existing facilities and capabilities?

All of the nanoscale research centers at the national labs play off of other capabilities and facilities. Our center is located on the site with the Spallation Neutron Source. Certainly the application of neutron scattering to nanoscience is one of the strengths that we’re building off of at CNMS. We’re also leveraging our electron microscopy capability. We have two other user programs that include electron microscopy as well as a very strong core research program in advancing electron microscopy and its techniques and applications to problems in materials science.

The other strength is in leadership-class computing. ORNL was successful in that competition, so we have one of DOE’s leading computing facilities in Oak Ridge. Because of that, it’s one of the strongest theory modeling and simulation programs of any of the nanoscience centers.

In addition to materials science and condensed matter physics, we also have a very strong chemical sciences division with expertise in polymers and catalysis, for example.

It really has brought together a lot of strengths and capabilities at the laboratory. If you look at nanoscience in general, it’s an interdisciplinary science. I’ve always said we have the chemists, the material scientists, the physicists, the mathematicians, the computer people, the engineers all involved in our nanoscience center, plus the biologists. I think there will be a growing emphasis in learning from biology and applying it in nanoscience.

Q: Can you give an example of something going on now at Oak Ridge where you’ve taken advantage of these numerous capabilities?

The Department of Energy funded initial user activities in 2004 and 2005, even though the facilities (were in construction), so it built on our existing facilities. We have a very strong program that builds on our carbon nanotubes research. We (are) taking polymer structures and including deuterium in place of hydrogen, which is beneficial to neutron scattering studies. In those programs we’ve had a half dozen user projects that have come specifically to work with us.

The theory program has been tremendously successful in the initial user areas. We’ve had a couple of high-impact publications coming out of that research.

Q: What are you learning from the neutron scattering capabilities?

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.

Where we think we will have a high impact is looking structurally at magnetism. CNMS has a big program in magnetism and transport that is only now coming online because we needed equipment to get that program going. Neutron scattering is one of the best tools for looking at magnetism and for looking at polymers and polymer structures.

We think that new tools for growing multilayers – I call them thick thin films, a structure that has enough structure to get good neutron scattering information – will be very beneficial in understanding oxides.

Q: Is part of your goal to better understand these fundamental properties so we can commercialize them?

Yes, but the primary driver is the science. Having said that, the technology is following very rapidly. At CNMS we have experimental, characterization and theory programs that can work hand in hand. As the polymer people like to say, we have one-stop shopping. When someone comes in to do polymers research, we have a theory group working on polymers, characterization capabilities, microscopy, neutron scattering facilities, and those can all be brought to bear on people’s research.

Q: Has the center allowed you to expand your staff?

To date we’ve hired 12 new staff members. We’re advertising – this doesn’t include the post docs – and will hire upwards of 15 to 17 more between now and 2008. We’re doing international searches for every position. A little bit of an exception to that are some of the technical support roles. We’re doing some internal transfers as well. Post docs, we’re at 14 now. We’ll be going to probably 20 to 25.

Q: How do you choose what programs you’ll be working on, especially in the user facilities?

We have calls for proposals. We require that people submit a short proposal and we have a review committee. We send the proposals out for electronic review and get scores back. That’s the basis. All that information is on our Web site (www.cnms.ornl.gov). We get proposals from academia, industry and internationally.

Q: Are you working on any proposals now? Can you give me an example from industry?

NanoTek is a small company using our facilities. We’ve had a lot of companies visit, but we’ve decided we won’t do proprietary research until March while we’re getting things set up. Some companies are waiting to do proprietary research. Proprietary research is not free.

Obviously, when a user applies for time at one of these national user facilities it is with the requirement that the results get published in the open literature. That’s why the DOE makes it free. If an industry wants to keep their results secret, then we’ll have this flexibility to do proprietary research and still allow industry’s access to it, but allow them to keep the information.

Almost all companies (using other Oak Ridge facilities) find coming in to do non-proprietary research first is a good thing. In nanoscience we may see a little different paradigm. We may see because of the technological payoff that some companies may want to start in the proprietary mode. But we’ll know that better in our next call for proposals.

Q: How many projects do you envision you can accommodate at any one time?

In fiscal year ’06, the current fiscal year, we anticipate that we will have around 100 projects. By the FY ’08 timeframe we expect to be at 250. That’s limited by our budget and not what we think the demand will be. For our first call for this fiscal year we had three times as many proposals as we could accept.

Q: Are many of the proposals coming from the region or locally?

We have a lot of regional participation but we have a lot of national and international participation as well. For the ’05 user proposals, we have Israel, France, Germany; I’m not sure if there was one from Japan. We have a large number from the University of Tennessee, Vanderbilt, Georgia Tech, Florida Atlantic – so regional as well.

Q: Do users need to be onsite or are there offsite capabilities?

The theory group has a mixed mode. Once the user relationship is established, they have a fairly easy time doing electronic collaborations. In general, we want users to come to the laboratory.

Having said that, for some polymer research, for example, where we’re doing a lot of synthesis, the synthesis process takes months. As our guys say, it is not even beneficial to a graduate student to watch a hood.

What we’re tending toward with that type of research is initial interaction where the research will be laid out and the synthesis will be started and then the users will come at the end to test their materials. We won’t require that we have the graduate student baby-sit the synthesis. I’m not a chemist, right?

It’s been a great learning experience. It’s a terrific job. I signed up for analytical chemistry in college, but when I looked at my schedule I decided that as thick as that textbook was – and as great as it would be (to use it as a platform on my seat) – that, maybe not. I wish now that I had not been so shortsighted, no pun intended.

Q: What do you see as the advantages and disadvantages to being the first center to open?

The advantages, of course, are being first. It’s great. We are able to hire people and get our user program off the ground. That has been very beneficial to the research staff and the users.

The downside is that we’re first. We were the first ones out, so we were always the first having some kind of review. The lessons learned got shared and we didn’t have them to start off with. I’ve been on reviews for every other nanoscience center, which has been great. I have learned a lot from this, as have others at our center. It’s been overall a positive thing to have been first.

The Horton File

Linda Horton calls her position as director of the Center for Nanophase Materials Sciences at Oak Ridge National Laboratory “a great learning experience” that has allowed her to witness firsthand the benefits of interdisciplinary research and teamwork. She’s no stranger to either the role of leader or researcher, though. Horton also serves as director of the Department of Energy’s Office of Basic Energy Sciences program on materials and engineering physics at Oak Ridge. Her research using electron microscopy to better understand materials such as diamond thin films has won numerous awards and led to more than 50 publications.

Can a pair of innovators get ahead of the angels and VCs?

By David Forman

Private funding works a certain way. Entrepreneurs bootstrap their moonlight tinkerings into small startups. They raise early financing from friends, family and angel investors. They go to venture capitalists. But a couple of companies actively funding nanotech are not so certain that’s the best way after all.

Instead, they are breaking the rules and raising money on public markets to sponsor university-level research in hopes of spinning out nano startups. These early stakes, they claim, will help them and their investors profit the most if they strike pay dirt.

However, they also share a set of challenges: holding the long-term attention of investors seeking quarterly results, justifying a stock price without a revenue stream, and rolling nascent technologies into revenue-producing companies fast enough to avoid having to give away lots of equity or pour money into years of expensive product development.

The basic business models of both Arrowhead Research (Nasdaq: ARWR) and Advance Nanotech (OTC.BB: AVNA) are strikingly similar. Both companies are sponsoring research at the university level in exchange for rights to commercialize the intellectual property that results. When the technologies are ready to leave the lab, say the executives in charge of the firms, they will form operating subsidiaries or spin off startups and then provide additional financing and support services and, if necessary, organize a broader investor syndicate for a follow-on round.


On a wafer today, in your smoke alarm tomorrow? Owlstone Nanotech President of Operations Billy Boyle co-founded the company that seeks to put nanosensors into safety sensing products. Owlstone is backed by Advance Nanotech. Photo courtesy of Advance Nanotech.
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“A lot of corporations used to do their own research,” said Bruce Stewart, chairman and chief executive officer of Pasadena, Calif.-based Arrowhead. “What they’re doing now is saying, ‘Let the entrepreneurs do it.’ … The real research today is in universities.”

Stewart said he can secure exclusive rights to leading-edge university research for between $200,000 and $250,000 per year – a price he considers a bargain. Arrowhead has three operating subsidiary companies and three sponsored research efforts. The company is also building a firm, NanoPolaris, that is attempting to aggregate intellectual property in the field of carbon nanotubes.


“There’s a lot of people who want to get in early and try to make a big hit,” says Arrowhead Research CEO Bruce Stewart. Photo courtesy of Arrowhead Research.
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Magnus Gittins, president and CEO of New York-based Advance Nanotech, sees the opportunity similarly: In his company’s case, he said it costs about $300,000 per year. One Advance Nanotech subsidiary, Cambridge, England-based Owlstone Nanotech, recently emerged and Gittins said two others are being prepared to be unveiled over the next year. Advance Nanotech claims 15 separate technology partnerships with University of Cambridge and Imperial College London as well as a minority interest in Singular ID Pte. of Singapore.

Arrowhead’s Stewart recently hired Virginia Dadey, a former investment bank sales executive, as vice president of investor relations in order to address the first problem: Shore up an institutional base to better maintain investor interest over the long haul.

Dadey said Arrowhead is being proactive about presenting at industry conferences and is trying to communicate the company’s message to the stock analyst community. And, of course, she is speaking with the institutional investors, hedge funds and other funds that she wants to recruit as investors in the firm.

By December, the company had managed to attract 11 institutional investors, accounting for 10.8 percent of the outstanding shares, according to the Nasdaq market. However, most of that – 9.2 percent – was held by one company. By contrast, the stock of Harris & Harris Group (Nasdaq: TINY), a publicly traded venture capital firm that specializes in nanotechnology, MEMS and microsystems, had 58 institutional investors in early December, representing more than 26 percent of its outstanding shares and a much more stable base of investors.

“It’s not for everybody,” Dadey acknowledged, but said she expects the initial resistance to give way as nanotech companies make more quantifiable achievements. Meanwhile, Stewart said he is beginning to receive inquiries from hedge funds and other large investors.

Advance Nanotech has been slower out of the gate. By early December it had no institutional investors, according to the Nasdaq. CEO Gittins said he spends upwards of two days per week with investment firms. “I believe we have been able to craft a quite unique message,” he said.

He agreed with Dadey that communication is a crucial part of the necessary strategy. “When you’re listed on a junior exchange and you’re a micro cap company you have to really get out and tell the story,” Gittins said. In the last year, he added, “there is more of an appetite for listening to stories about disruptive technologies that will enable new markets.”

And he thinks the job will be easier once portfolio companies prove their mettle. “Once we monetize the Owlstone asset it will provide credibility to me and my management team,” he said.

And, by reference, the stock. Without revenues, profits or other quarterly metrics by which to measure their progress, it will be difficult for investors to justify a certain price, and likewise a challenge for analysts who might be interested in following the companies to set price targets.

However, both Stewart and Gittins acknowledge that moving technologies out of the lab and into product companies will likely be their biggest challenge. What began as a bargain becomes an expensive proposition once they create and staff companies around the technologies, they said.

Already, Arrowhead faced such a situation. After realizing that one of its initial subsidiaries, Nanotechnica, was going to take longer to develop its technology than originally anticipated, Arrowhead shut it down last summer rather than pony up the $16 million it had contemplated investing.

“We pulled Nanotechnica out of the lab and into the market prematurely,” Stewart said. “Now we leave (the technology) in the university for as long as we can.”


A research associate at Arrowhead subsidiary Insert Therapeutics works on cell lines for in vitro studies of its Cyclosert drug-delivery polymers. Photo courtesy of Arrowhead Research.
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In response, Dadey said Arrowhead has tweaked its model to fund only what she characterized as “late stage investments” – that is, university technologies that are almost at a prototype stage. She said that might mean 12 to 24 months to develop a research product and another year for a commercial one.

Gittins said his company also intends to keep technologies in the university setting as long as possible to keep costs down. And, he has hired a trio of industry experts with real-world experience commercializing products in the materials, electronics and life science sectors.

Doubtless such expertise will help. And if they are successful in getting past the so-called valley of death between prototypes and revenues it will be that much more of an accomplishment – because it’s not just any old rule that these companies are breaking, but rather one of the cardinal rules of private equity: Don’t fund science projects.

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.

Dec. 22, 2005 — Veeco Instruments Inc. announced that it has appointed Benjamin Loh Gek Lim as senior vice president/general manager of Veeco’s Asia Pacific Operations.

Loh will be responsible for the sales and service leadership of Veeco’s APAC organization, which includes operations in Singapore, Malaysia, Taiwan, Korea, China and India. He will report to John Bulman, Veeco’s executive vice president of worldwide sales and foreign operations.

Loh joins Veeco from Unaxis, where he was senior vice president of Asia and president of Unaxis Shanghai.