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2005 Nuggets

A NanoApplications Workshop workshop was facilitated by Angus Kingon, a professor in both Materials Science and Engineering and Business Management at North Carolina State University. The workshop, a first-time experiment sponsored by Penn State’s Center for Nanoscale Science, was created to help academic researchers become aware of the commercial implications of their research from the earliest stages, and to help industry "conceptualize viable new products," in unfamiliar fields. To give participants a real world example, which would be used for brainstorming product ideas later in the workshop, Paul Weiss, professor of chemistry and physics at Penn State, gave a detailed presentation on current work at the University in nanofabrication and chemical patterning. In particular, he described work in molecular rulers and ultrathin films with special properties for binding molecules. "Penn State is currently one of the world leaders in self-assembly and in ways of looking at what we’ve made," according to Weiss.

After the presentation and comments from the industry representatives, the participants broke into two groups to develop product ideas using two different approaches to stimulate thinking toward solutions to real world problems.

The workshop was run under the auspices of an NSF project: “National Partnership for Managing Upstream Innovation: The Case of Nanoscience and Technology” awarded to North Carolina State University in partnership with Penn State’s Center for Nanoscale Science, an NSF-funded Materials Research Science and Engineering Center.

Prof. Angus Kingon charges the workshop participants with their tasks in innovation based on IRG1’s recent and future advances in molecular rulers.

This is an excerpt from an article written by Walt Mills, available at:

http://www.mri.psu.edu/articles/DeathValley_ResSpotlight/index.asp