News

Atomate Survey in Nanotechnology Now

Santa Barbara, CA – June 10, 2004 – These are some excerpts from the NanoNews-Now Premium Report #12 Published on June 10, 2004. The questions were answered by Brian Lim, CEO of Atomate Corporation. For a complete report, please contact the publishers directly at
http://www.nanotech-now.com/products/nanonewsnow/

From your point of view, what is nanotechnology?
Nanotechnolgy is an interdisciplinary field that enables products that take advantage of properties that can only be realized with nano-scale materials. At the nanometer scale, physics crosses into the quantum realm and amazing things are possible. A good example of this is the carbon nanotube. A transistor made out of this material has the potential to be two orders of magnitude smaller in size and an order of magnitude faster in operating frequency, while consuming a small fraction of the power of a CMOS transistor. This is not just an incremental improvement, but a technology that breaks through the fundamental physical limits of semiconductors in their current form. The carbon nanotube is also over 100 times stronger than steel and as thermally conductive as diamond. Devices made of such materials will change the world and enable the creation of entirely unforeseen products.

Please talk about the tools your company has developed in the past, and how they enabled research into nanoscience.
Atomate develops solutions for synthesis of nanotubes and nanowires. We offer robust commercial systems, components, and process materials for nanostructure synthesis using the chemical vapor deposition method. Controlled growth of nanostructures is a field that is still very much in the scientific research phase. As new processes are developed, existing equipment quickly reach their limits. We leverage our process knowledge and engineering experience to quickly find solutions that break through these limitations so that interesting scientific discoveries can evolve into products.

What tools are you working on today, and what are the specific R&D applications?
We are currently working on nanostructure characterization instruments in addition to advanced systems for nanowire and nanotube growth. Our new instruments will help our customers characterize the nanostructures grown in our system. We have invented very elegant solutions that improve control over the many variables that affect the quality and repeatability of nanostructure synthesis, and we have integrated a number of safety features, especially for nanowire synthesis where toxic gases are used.

In what areas of nanoscience research are improved tools needed most?
Atomate has helped the nanotechnology researchers with tools that really improve control over the synthesis of nanostructures. Now, we find that characterizing these materials are the bottle neck in the research market. We are planning to launch these tools by Fall, 2004.

Considering the rapid pace at which our understanding of nanoscale phenomena is growing, what developments excite you the most?
The economic impact of nanotechnology can be compared to that of silicon-based semiconductors on the vacuum tube age. What really excites me is the creation of entirely unforeseen products. How many people during the 1980's would have thought that I can take a high resolution digital photograph of my son's first birthday and email it to his uncle on a business trip in Korea with my cell phone? Recently, Stanford University researchers produced 90% semiconducting carbon nanotubes with the CVD process. It is just a matter of time before these nanotubes are used as devices in integrated circuits.

In your opinion, what are the most difficult hurdles yet to be crossed in our understanding of the nanoscale?
Understanding the nanoscale requires solving difficult problems in quantum physics that even the most power computers today cannot solve. Most of the research work is performed empirically. Nanotechnology will eventually enable devices such as quantum computers that may be able to solve these incredibly complex equations. Until such a break through, nanotechnology research will progress with a lot of intelligent guessing and experimentation. Atomate will help improve this experimentation process.

Mr. Brian Lim is the CEO of Atomate Corporation. Prior to Atomate, Brian was VP of Business Development at NanoDevices (acquired by Veeco); VP of Engineering at Alpha Virtual; VP of Marketing at Broadware; Director of Marketing for StarOffice; and Product Manager at Sun Microsystems. Brian also engineered mission-critical devices for interplanetary science instruments for 8 years at NASA-JPL. Brian earned a MS in Management and Engineering from the MIT Sloan School of Management and a BSME, also from MIT.

About Atomate Corporation:

Atomate Corporation develops critical components, materials, and systems optimized for the synthesis of nanostructures. The Atomate team is dedicated to working closely with customers to supply products that solve problems efficiently and economically. Atomate has a solution for researchers who desire enhancements to existing systems and for those who want to build or buy a new system. Atomate's mission is to develop products that enable the customer to focus their efforts on the science, not on engineering of equipment. Additional information on Atomate can be found at http://www.atomate.com.

CONTACT:
Atomate Corporation
Michelle Kim
(805) 963-1779
michelle.kim@atomate.com