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Nanotechnology: A risky frontier?
RUSHFORD, MINN. -- Inside a cramped back room at Rushford Hypersonic, a start-up headquartered in southeastern Minnesota, sits a cube-like machine that throws a mean atomic fastball.
At the push of a button, the reactor hurls atoms toward a substrate material at eight times faster than the speed of sound.
The result is a coating that significantly strengthens industrial tools such as knives and drill bits. Rushford's technology, licensed from the University of Minnesota, is just one example of how local companies, from corporate giants such as Medtronic Inc. and Seagate Technology to start-ups like Rushford, Vixar Inc., and BioCee Inc., are embracing nanotechnology.
"It's the next generation," said Rushford CEO Daniel Fox, who bills his start-up as the first nanotechnology company in rural Minnesota. "It's what's coming. Nanotech does not need to be done by just big corporations like IBM and Ford. If we don't do it, we're going to be left behind because the rest of the world is really pushing it."
Broadly defined, nanotechnology is the science of coaxing special properties out of matter less than 100 nanometers. At that small size -- one nanometer equals 1/10,000 the width of a human hair -- some matter displays unique characteristics, such as greater surface size, electrical conductivity and resistance to liquids like water. The result is batteries that pack more juice, light bulbs that use less energy, and, further down the road, medical devices that can deliver drugs and stem cells to diseased tissue anywhere in the body. In Rushford's case, the coating's nanoparticles bind closer together, increasing hardness, resisting fracture and better tolerating heat.
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A bio border battle
Part 1: Wisconsin has biotechnology investment down to a science, bounding ahead of Minnesota with a broad, tax-friendly strategy. Coming tomorrow, part 2: Badger State's tech boom.
Photo right: Harry Norris, president and CEO of Rapid Diagnostek
Badger State's tech boom
Part 2: A look under the hood at Wisconsin's biotech start-up machine reveals a powerfully successful combination of academic and commercial cooperation.
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