Progress Made in Nanotube Switch Application

Technology developer AMBIT Corporation (Ashland, MA) has made significant progress in a key area of its carbon nanotube technology platform that will enable a new class of nano-scaled devices such as switches and on-chip memory, according to company co-founder Robert J. Crowley. “AMBIT Corporation’s carbon nanotubes are microscopic actuators on a computer chip and they have a number of important uses” said Crowley. “We realized that the nanotubes are influenced by fields, such as electrostatic fields, and even though the tubes themselves are stiff, practical field strengths are sufficient to cause the nanotubes to move, or bend, when a signal is applied.” Crowley envisions that the first commercialization of the company’s patented and patent-pending technology will be in switching and memory applications, where the high density and controllability of the company’s proprietary carbon nanotube-on-silicon process is already largely compatible with conventional chip manufacturing processes.

“This initiative in the nanotube memory area has been under development since the mid-90’s and we think has an excellent chance of replacing certain other forms of computer memory” remarked AMBIT’s VP of New Business, Robert Arcangeli. “Our plan to continue development of this platform with one or more JV partners, while we continue our nanotube optical research and development” he said.

AMBIT’s Robert J Crowley is the inventor of the carbon nanotube array antenna paltform that is now being developed for medical, military and consumer applications by the company. “Other antenna technology invented at AMBIT includes a patented system that can control and enhance cellular and other forms of personal communication”, according to AMBIT’s in-house patent attorney Donald Halgren. Halgren, who co-founded AMBIT in the early 90’s with Crowley, which has seen steady growth of its technology and patent portfolio, now totaling some 20 issued and pending patents.

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