NanoIntegris, an
Illinois-based nanomaterials startup company, announced today that it has begun
selling samples of its metallic and semiconducting single-walled carbon nanotubes
(SWCNTs), which the company has labeled IsoNanotubes, to customers worldwide.
Because of their unique electronic and optical properties, SWCNTs have attracted
considerable attention from researchers in the electronics, energy, and biomedical
industries over the past several years. Most notably, SWCNTs can behave as either
high-mobility conductors or semiconductors, capable of outperforming traditional
materials like copper and silicon in applications such as integrated circuits,
flat-panel displays, and solar cells.
Limitations in SWCNT manufacturing, however, have long precluded companies
from utilizing SWCNTs for serious commercial R&D. "Current SWCNT manufacturing
techniques can only generate mixtures of nanotubes that are electronically polydisperse,
i.e. that contain both metallic and semiconducting tubes," said Nathan
Yoder, NanoIntegris's product development manager. "But electronically
polydisperse tubes are unsuitable for many applications. The heterogeneity of
commercially available SWCNTs has consequently been a frustrating obstacle for
nanotechnology developers."
Despite the demand for electronically pure SWCNTs, attempts to produce uniform
metallic and semiconducting nanotubes have met with limited success. "Researchers
have been struggling to make SWCNTs of uniform electronic type for over a decade,"
continued Dr. Yoder. "Although various synthesis and processing techniques
have been developed which yield promising results on a laboratory scale, none
of these techniques has demonstrated the potential to produce very-high-purity
metallic and semiconducting tubes on a large, commercial scale."
NanoIntegris's approach meets this scalability criterion. The company has developed
a novel centrifugation process for separating commercially produced, electronically
polydisperse SWCNTs by electronic type. "Our process is effective and expandable,"
stated NanoIntegris's executive vice president Dan Leven. "What is more,
the feedback we have received so far from customers regarding the performance
of our metallic and semiconducting SWCNTs has been overwhelmingly positive.
We are looking forward to working with applications developers to incorporate
our IsoNanotubes into future commercial products."
NanoIntegris is a leading supplier of premium carbon nanotubes. The company
was spun out of the Hersam Research Group at Northwestern University in early
2007. Its mission is to enable the commercialization of new carbon nanotube
applications by providing researchers with materials of the type and purity
they require.