Texas Nanotechnology Companies

Austin-based Applied Nanotech is working with six Japanese electronics firms to develop a 25-inch television using carbon nanotubes. The television will achieve higher resolution, brightness, and crispness as well as a slimmer form factor. Within a few years, these technologies may challenge today’s liquid crystal display and plasma technologies in the television market.

The Zyvex Corporation has introduced a nanomanipulator for the life sciences industry, which allows researchers and manufacturers to perform a variety of laboratory functions such as cellular manipulation, material characterization, and micro-injection.

The Advanced Materials Research Center, Xidex Corporation and Sematech - all based in Austin - have created one of Texas’ first commercial applications for semiconductor production. Their technique uses carbon nanotubes in scanning probe microscopy, a technique to scan and manipulate atoms at the molecular scale. The nanotubes will allow chip-makers to measure the dimensions of semiconductor devices as small as one nanometer. In commercial applications, the new technique will eventually allow production of advanced semiconductors at the 32 nanometer scale, a step in semiconductor manufacturing that is projected to become commonplace in the next decade.

Many of the riders in the 2006 Tour de France used bicycle frames embedded with carbon nanotubes to reduce the overall weight, thereby increasing their performance characteristics. Carbon nanotubes are proving to be useful because they retain many of the beneficial properties of other forms of carbon while dramatically reducing the weight of the molecule relative to its size. For example, Swiss manufacturer BMC incorporates nanotubes into bicycle frames, reducing the overall weight by 20 percent. One supplier of carbon nanotubes for bicycle frames is the Zyvex Corporation.