News and Events >2006 Frost & Sullivan Award for Excellence in Technology Award Recipient: ALD Nanosolutions, Inc.

2006 Frost & Sullivan Award for Excellence in Technology Award Recipient: ALD Nanosolutions, Inc.

Frost & Sullivan's 2006 Excellence in Technology Award in the field of Advanced Coating and Surface Technologies goes to ALD Nanosolutions, Inc. for developing and commercializing novel atomic layer deposition (ALD) techniques. The two primary techniques that have been developed are Particle ALDTM and Polymer ALDTM for nanocoating conformal inorganic films on individual particles and polymer substrates respectively.

Established in 2002, this Colorado-based company is developing state of the art ALD techniques that could have applications in advanced materials,

microelectronics, biomedical, and defense and consumer products. The company also has exclusive licensing rights for the intellectual property on ALD techniques developed at the University of Colorado- Boulder. The company has patented its Particle ALDTM technology (it has filed for 10 patents of which 3 have been issued so far).

There is increasing interest in using nanoparticles and nanomaterials to provide better, more customized solutions to industry. When applied as coatings, nanoparticles could provide improved functionalities, i.e. better wear resistance, corrosion resistance, scratch resistance, hardness, hydrophobicity, hydrophilicity, catalytic activity, etc., to substrates. However successful large-scale production of conformal thin coatings or films on substrates has been a huge challenge for researchers. Conventional techniques such as chemical vapor deposition have been commercially employed to produce nanocoatings but suffer from drawbacks such as agglomeration of nanoparticles on the substrate (which often deactivates the functionality of the coated material), non-uniform coats, and wastage of valuable precursors. So far uniform nanocoatings have been realized only on metallic substrates using ALD.

In this context ALD Nanosolutions' inventions are notable. It has been the first to develop the novel Particle ALDTM technique that produces conformal, uniform, pinhole free, high purity, inorganic nanocoatings on the surface of dry individual nanoparticles. To achieve this, the research team at ALD Nanosolutions efficiently synchronized the unique fluidization characteristic of nanoparticles known as dynamic aggregation and the self-limiting sequential surface reaction provided by the ALD technique. The Particle ALDTM process is carried out in a fluidized bed reactor making it easily scalable and line of sight independent. The thickness of the coating produced via this technique is independent of the time, flux or location in the fluidized bed reactor. In addition the coating is chemically bonded to the particulate substrate.

This technique can be employed to produce passivated magnetic nanometals that have applications in areas such as drug delivery, magnetic resonance imaging materials, and powdered magnetic cores. The technique could potentially also be used in developing thermal fillers with improved properties, polymer/ceramic nanocomposites, improved lighting materials low-energy high-sensitive sensors, thermite, dental, catalytic materials and quantum tunneling surge protection devices.

The company has also introduced a variant of the Particle ALDTM process called Polymer ALDTM through which is it possible to deposit inorganic nanocoatings on either polymer particles or substrates, independent of the chemistry or shape of the polymer. The coating process is carried out at low temperatures. Hermitically sealing OLED devices used in making flexible displays appears to be one of the leading applications for this technique.

Depending on the density of the substrate particles different reactors could be produced and ALD Nanosolutions has developed reactors that can produce 1 kilogram and 5 kilograms of nanocoated particles. The company is aiming to increase its reactor capacity 10X (to about 50 kilograms of nanocoated particles) by the end of this year.

Till date the company has bagged nine Phase I awards from funding agencies such as National Science Foundation (NSF), the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) and Air Force Office of Scientific Research to develop specific applications for its ALD technique. So far ALD Nanosolutions has validated and demonstrated the success of the technique by proceeding to Phase II in four cases.

For its development and commercialization of a path breaking atomic layer deposition technique that provides nanocoatings on individual particles and polymer substrates for a wide spectrum of applications, Frost & Sullivan recognizes ALD Nanosolutions, Inc. with the prestigious Award for Excellence in Technology.