Kentucky Economic Development Guide

Kentucky is making a big splash in a field that manipulates molecular particles into products with applications in the aerospace, cancer research, solar power and across virtually every other field of technology.

Lexington-based Topasol is working with the U.S. Navy on “smart” coatings for military aircraft that turn one color to show impact damage and another color to show heat stress.

In Louisville, NaugaNeedles makes minute probes that are 1/1000th the width of a human hair for research in medicine, fluid sciences and thermal vibrations.

And at the University of Louisville, a 10,000 square-foot clean room is a key feature of the $42 million Science and Technology Research Center.
Nanotechnology is the common denominator.

“We are probing smaller worlds that we had no clue about and needed a smaller tool to go there,” said David Mudd, sales and marketing director for NaugaNeedles, a University of Louisville spinoff based on the research of Mehdi M. Yazdanpanah.

Researchers who use atomic force microscopes use the needles to probe the liquid environments and make highly sensitive measurements within living cells. NaugaNeedles are more flexible and harder to break than other nanoprobes, and unlike some of their competitors, are conductive, he said. These unique properties make them useful in studies in fields that range from cancer research to lithium ion batteries.

“To study something, you have to disturb it and not just hit it with light,” Mudd says.

Uschi Graham, a chemistry professor at the University of Kentucky, founded Topasol – short for topical solutions. The company’s super-sensitive aircraft coating will help engineers pinpoint damage before it develops into more serious problems, possibly grounding the aircraft longer for repairs.

“New advanced composite structures for aircraft bodies are extremely strong and durable and lightweight,” she said. “But even at low velocities, a bird strike can cause delamination, but you cannot tell by looking at the structure.”

The patent-pending technology, which the university licensed to Topasol, is still in development. So are other nanocoatings to reduce reflection and glare, allowing solar cells to absorb more of the incoming energy, though the company owns that technology outright, says Graham, the company’s president and CEO.

At the University of Louisville, scientists and engineers from multiple disciplines are using the Micro/Nano Technology Cleanroom, trying to make very small things that address very big problems.

Some work in nanotechnology; others work in MEMS, or microelectromechanical systems, devices and structures.

In MEMS, scientists place microcomponents on wafers and etch away particles they don’t need. Combined with radio frequency technology, the approach at UofL has created an implantable wireless sensor for glaucoma management and a sensor than can detect whether patients are healing properly after spinal fusion surgery.

Other UofL groups are working on scavenging energy from vibrations in wind and traffic, and even electrochemical energy from trees.

The Micro/Nano lab also is leading an effort to link all of Kentucky’s university and private nanotech efforts together.

Mudd likened the field to Horton Hears a Who! In the Dr. Seuss classic book, Horton, a large elephant, realizes a speck of dust is an entire planet populated by microscopic inhabitants no one can see.