Federal laboratories play a major role in the development of nanotechnology. Some of the key players include NASA’s Ames Research Center, U.S. Naval Research Laboratory, Army Research Laboratories, the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), and the various Department of Energy (DOE) national laboratories around the country. The focus of the efforts in these laboratories is technology development for the needs of the parent organization.
For example, the impetus for nanotechnology research at NASA labs is the development of advanced miniaturization of sensors and instrumentation for science missions to meet the need for smaller mass, volume, and power consumption. Some of the mission needs expected to benefit from nanotechnology include the development of radiation-hardened electronics and communication devices, microcraft (weighing only 10kg or less), high-strength but low-weight composites for future spacecraft, and a sensor network consisting of thousands of physical, chemical, and biosensors for planetary exploration.
Federal laboratories in the Department of Defense are focused on developing ultrasensitive and highly discriminating sensors for chemical, biological, and nuclear threats. Revolutions in electronics, optoelectronics, and photonics devices for gathering, protection, and transmission of information are critical for DoD’s missions. The goal of Army Research Lab in its nanotechnology efforts is to reduce the weight carried by individual soldiers without losing any functionality. DOE national laboratories serve the agency’s missions related to both basic and applied energy research as well as national security. The DOE national laboratories also include the nation’s largest network of user facilities, open to all researchers on a peer-review basis, including five Nanoscale Science Research Centers.
As research and development components of participating agencies of the National Nanotechnology Initiative (NNI), the federal laboratories address various grand challenges in nanotechnology, including nanomaterials for energy needs, metrology, nanoelectronics, materials for chemical industries, health-care needs, and space exploration.
The broader goals of many federal agencies are also addressed by academic universities through contracts and grants, and by small businesses through research contracts from the Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) and Small Business Technology Transfer (STTR) programs. All these augment the in-house efforts within the federal laboratories.
In addition to serving the needs of the federal labs’ parent organizations, the devices, processes, and technologies developed at federal labs often have commercial applications. Federal laboratories have historically been a rich source of new commercial products, with hundreds of successful stories of tech transfer to the private sector over the past forty years. Products such as cordless drills emerged from the Apollo program because of the need for astronauts to drill down beneath the moon’s surface and use compact, battery-powered tools. Wilson Sporting Goods Company used technology developed for the Space Shuttle’s tanks to create a more symmetrical golf ball surface. The resulting selection and placement of dimples on the surface of the golf ball help the ball travel longer distances. The Space Shuttle’s thermal protection technology is now used to insulate race cars from sweltering interior temperatures. Technology originally developed for NASA’s Skylab led to the home smoke detectors commonly used today. Research at DOE national laboratories has contributed to the development of an artificial retina that uses a nanocrystalline diamond film and spun out a company that is one of the leading producers of specialized nanoscale materials.
These are only a few examples of commercial products that can trace their origin to one of the federal labs. One can expect this trend to continue with nanotechnology as well in the coming years. There is a well-established mechanism for technology transfer to the commercial sector. In the case of NASA, there is the Office of Technology Partnerships, which works on all the technology licensing programs. NASA Tech Briefs magazine, a monthly publication, lists and describes NASA innovations that are ready for the marketplace.
In addition, NASA has regional tech transfer offices that focus on matching a particular innovation with the needs of the industry in the region. Regular tech transfer conferences are also organized by the field centers, and regional tech transfer offices bring together NASA innovators and industrial participants. All possible avenues are used to get the word out about the availability of technologies for commercial licensing.
As an example of federal laboratory activities, consider technology transfer efforts at one of the leading nanotechnology laboratories at NASA Ames Research Center. The research focus at NASA Ames is on nanomaterials such as carbon nanotubes, inorganic nanowires, conducting organic molecules, and protein nanotubes. The applications focus for these nanomaterials is diverse: nanoelectronics, computing, data storage, nanoscale lasers, chemical sensors and biosensors, ultraviolet and infrared detectors, and advanced life-support systems that address waste remediation, air purification, and water purification as well as instrumentation for planetary exploration and astronaut health monitoring devices.
NASA Ames has developed a substantial intellectual property portfolio in these areas. Some of the technologies have been licensed to private companies. For example, the use of carbon nanotubes in computer chip cooling and associated processing techniques have been licensed to a start-up company in the Bay Area. Similar efforts are ongoing for licensing biosensors, genechips, and chemical sensors. Another avenue of tech transfer has been companies founded by employees of the NASA Ames Center for Nanotechnology.
NASA Ames Office of Technology Partnerships routinely organizes one-day workshops to showcase the Ames-developed technologies. To meet entrepreneurs and members of the industrial community, this office also participates in such workshops organized by other NASA centers and regional tech transfer centers, as well as other conferences and symposia.
In addition to working on tech transfer to industry, this office facilitates joint research between NASA Ames and interested companies through an arrangement called the Space Act Agreement (SAA). The SAA is a type of cooperative research and development agreement that enables the two parties to jointly develop a process or product, with each contributing to certain aspects of the development. The rights of each party for commercialization and marketing are clearly spelled out in the SAA document as negotiated by the two parties. NASA Ames currently has several SAAs in place with a number of industrial partners.
Technology transfer in Department of Defense labs takes place in a variety of ways. The primary focus of DoD labs is not to develop commercial products but to develop solutions to the problems of military services such as the Army, Navy, and so on. These services communicate problems, issues, and limitations they experience in the conduct of their operations, and priorities are developed by the DoD labs to resolve these problems. Solutions are proposed by the labs through written and oral proposals to meet specific needs, with funding provided (when available) to those of the highest priority.
For additional research and scientific validation, labs may also partner with an outside company or university through a Cooperative Research and Development Agreement (CRADA). This can leverage both the funding and the expertise of the laboratory to greater meet the needs of the military services. When a project has reached this point and is close to developing a prototype, funding may be obtained from DoD sources outside the lab, such as a branch’s Scientific Office of Research or funding from an applied program (for example, the F-22 aircraft or global positioning satellites). Defense labs rarely directly spin out commercial companies, but they have extensive commercialization and licensing programs similar to those of other agencies.
DOE’s Nanoscale Science Research Centers convene regular meetings to provide a forum for exchange of ideas among researchers from many institutions, as well as a means to educate users on the capabilities that exist and are being developed at these unique national facilities. The facilities are available for use on a peer-reviewed basis. Time, materials, and technical assistance are provided free of charge for researchers who are willing to publish the results of their work in the open literature, and on a cost-recovery basis when used for proprietary purposes.
There are active nanotechnology programs with a substantial investment of personnel at many federal laboratories. These mission-driven labs explore specific technologies, seeking solutions to urgent and long-standing problems in their road maps. Invariably the developments have commercial possibilities, and each lab has a commercialization office and well-established procedures to transfer technology to industry. In addition to the nation’s universities, the federal labs are anticipated to be a key source for intellectual property in nanotechnology.