UB inventors receive SUNY funding

UB engineers will receive $50,000 from the statewide SUNY Technology Accelerator Fund to build a commercial prototype of a metrology system they have invented.

This patented technology is capable of capturing a single atom or multiple atoms between two probes, and then studying and measuring a wide variety of the atoms’ electronic and physical properties.

The state-of-the-art equipment needed to do this type of research is vital for scientists looking to craft smaller, lighter electronic devices and medical implants with atomic-scale parts. The way that a single atom behaves is uniquely different from the way atoms behave when found in bulk.

The project team is comprised of Jason Armstrong, who is the principal investigator and a faculty member in the Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, and Gerry Murak, president, CEO and founder of Precision Scientific Instruments Inc. (PSi), a Buffalo-based, high-tech manufacturing startup that has licensed the metrology technology.

In their proposal, Armstrong and Murak state that their technology “represents the ‘complete solution’ platform for investigation and development of the next generation of devices as small as a single atom.”

“There is a void in the current marketplace for metrology equipment that is capable of forming and studying materials and devices as small as a single atom,” they add.

Armstrong invented the now-patented metrology device with UB colleagues Harsh Deep Chopra and Susan Hua, both faculty members in the Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering. PSi is working with the UB inventors to further develop and commercialize the technology. The company’s tagline is, “Where miniature is about to get significantly smaller.”

Launched in 2011, the SUNY Technology Accelerator Fund (TAF) cultivates innovation by speeding the commercialization of high-impact SUNY inventions.

The UB project is one of five from across the SUNY system that will receive TAF support in the current round of funding. The other recipients were teams from Stony Brook University, SUNY Downstate Medical Center and the University at Albany, and a collaborative team representing SUNY Upstate Medical University and the SUNY College of Environmental Science and Forestry. SUNY and the SUNY Research Foundation announced the awards May 29.

To date, TAF has successfully advanced the commercial readiness of 11 SUNY-developed innovations. The fund also has contributed to the establishment of two startup companies formed to commercialize TAF-funded technologies and enable research teams to pursue funding from federal funding sources.

Factors that evaluators considered in awarding TAF funding included availability of intellectual property protection, marketability, commercial potential, feasibility and breadth of impact.