In college, some people find their soul mate; others meet their business partner. Once in a blue moon, they find both.
That’s what happened to Shane Woody and Bethany Lamy when they met as graduate mechanical engineering students at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte.
While still students at the UNC Charlotte Center for Precision Metrology, this husband and wife team started InsituTec, a company focused on finding better ways to measure the shrinking scale of technology.
“If you have to measure something a 100 microns long, you have to have a resolution much smaller than that,” said Bethany.
That smaller scale is the nanometer scale, a billionth of a meter. A single sheet of paper is about 100,000 nanometers thick. InsituTec uses nanotechnology, the manipulation of atoms and molecules on the nanometer scale, to make smaller, more precise measurements.
Take a diesel engine for example. The fuel efficiency and emissions of a diesel engine depend partly on how well the fuel is sprayed into the engine. Over time, the tiny holes used to spray the fuel can become worn down so that too much fuel is injected into the engine at one time, causing black soot emissions and reduced fuel efficiency.
Inventors at InsituTec and UNC Charlotte have patented a device that can measure inside the holes of the fuel injector. That’s no easy feat. The holes are long and narrow – 2 millimeters long, but only spanning about 70 microns, or 70 millionths of a meter wide.
The device – called a standing wave probe – is able to fit into these small holes and make nanolevel measurements without sticking to the surface. The company has overcome some of the biggest problems that face companies that try to design measurement equipment for a small scale.
“If you can’t measure it, how are you going to know what you’ve made? A lot of times people are simply building things blindly,” said Shane.
With an array of tools capable of measuring at the tiny nanometer scale, scientists and engineers will be able to study and create with an even greater level of detail. The need for more precise measurement is important not only for machines and devices now, but even more so for the future. As everything from cell phones to laptops continue to shrink in size, demand for tools that can make smaller and smaller measurements will likely increase.
Also, the standing wave probe is just one example of how these new devices can help people understand and improve on old technologies, such as the diesel engine, invented more than a hundred years ago. Nanotechnology is likely to leave a footprint, not only on futuristic technologies, but also on the technology we already have. Industry markets for InsituTec technology include aerospace, automotive and chip manufacturing.
With funds from the National Institute of Standards and Technology, the company hopes to commercialize the technology in the next two years. That’s pretty fast, considering the pair graduated only last year. But with help from a business incubator program at UNC Charlotte and the Charlotte Research Institute, these North Carolina natives have been able to get their small business off the ground.
The Charlotte Research Institute (CRI) works as a link between university technology and the business community. CRI guided InsituTec through the process of launching a company and commercializing their technology for future clients. InsituTec is the first all-student-founded company guided into creation by CRI and various state and local small business/technology funding programs. Bob Wilhelm, executive director of CRI, believes that enterprise from homegrown technology research is central to North Carolina’s future.
“In the short term, the state can benefit from attracting companies from other states, but I think in the long term, the bigger opportunities are in using our rich university research to grow our knowledge-based economy in the state of North Carolina. InsituTec is a good example of this,” said Wilhelm.
State funding from sources such as the North Carolina Innovative Development for Economic Advancement and Small Business Innovation Research matching grants bridge the funding gap that new companies when taking university research into the realm of business and commercialization.
The next step for the company is to develop a measurement service for companies, but eventually, the company plans to sell measuring devices, such as the standing wave probe, to various engineering or manufacturing firms. Because of trade secrets, Bethany says many companies prefer to take their own measurements rather than contract out to a company to do the measurement.
“For a lot of companies, their parts are proprietary. They would much rather buy the product they need. In the long run, we would provide the product they need,” said Bethany.
This kind of technology is an insight into how the field of nanotechnology can shape existing technologies, such as the fuel efficiency of a diesel engine, and also enable new technologies yet to be discovered.
