Ocean NanoTech Lands Army Grant
by January 2, 2006 12:00 am 122 views
Ocean NanoTech LLC of Fayetteville is about to begin a study funded by a two-year $730,000 Phase II Small Business Innovation Research award from the U.S. Army.
The study, which is set to begin in February, will look at ways to develop a coating on a new type of goggles to protect soldiers’ eyes from lasers.
The company is in the middle of a $120,000 Phase I “option” from the Army. An option is designed to fill the financial gap for a company between a Phase I and Phase II award, said Andrew Wang, principal scientist with the company.
Ocean NanoTech is a spin-off company from Fayetteville’s Nanomaterials & Nanofabrication Laboratories. Ocean NanoTech has seven licenses from NN Labs, which synthesizes pure and uniform sized nanocrystals for various uses in research and production. The technology is based on research done at the University of Arkansas by Xiaogang Peng, a professor of chemistry and biochemistry at the University of Arkansas.
Nanocrystals can emit different colors of light, depending on their make-up and consistency of size, and therefore “block” laser light in the right conditions.
The goggle coating Wang and his staff are developing will react to laser light almost instantaneously, he said, whereas current technology uses micro-electronics. Eye damage may have already occurred by the time electronics react, Wang said.