Successful Prototypes

Patent Pending

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Nano-materials, nano-fabrication, and nano-machines have been one of the hottest areas for R&D in the past decade. Successful commercialization of several materials has added fuel to that fire and for good reason. The field has tremendous potential in electronics, medicine, and in applications yet to be imagined. However, note that the only commercial products have been materials in which the "nanoparticles" are handled in bulk, in processes just like those previously used to handle "powders".

Assembling specific nano-machines from nano-parts will require a nano-sized equivalent to the parts hoppers and pick-and-place machines currently used in factories to assemble much larger products such as 1.8 inch disk drives.

In order to address this market need, researchers have developed a new technology called ParaMag. ParaMag provides positive individual nanoparticle manipulation in thousands of simultaneous parallel pathways on the surface of an "assembly line template".

ParaMag offers nearly unconstrained freedom to design two-dimensional assembly line layouts. Templates are simple and easy to fabricate, even in single units, so the process is suitable for prototyping or small-lot production. The only support equipment needed in production is a rotating magnetic field that can be provided by something the size of a coffee mug warmer powered by a USB cable.

Currently, the most directly competing approach for manipulating nano-sized parts is called "optical tweezers". These are expensive machines with which a skilled operator uses laser beams to move nano-parts one at a time. Optical tweezers are versatile for research but not at all suitable for production. Other competitors use techniques from the biomedical industry to design molecules or microorganisms that selectively attach both to the nano-parts and to each other and self assemble into useful configurations. This approach is very difficult, even for simple repetitive structures.

The inventor, a Professor of Physics at The Ohio State University, has written over 70 peer-reviewed journal articles and book chapters in topics arrayed around the understanding of quantum electromagnetic effects in tiny bits of material. Since developing this approach he has built and tested many variations and has a team of graduate students developing additional elements.

$10,000 for royalty to use technology

Seeking: Purchase