Our facilities and laboratories
Nanohmics, Inc. maintains 7000 sq. ft. of R&D, engineering and prototype manufacturing facilities in Austin, Texas with close proximity to numerous University of Texas laboratories, research centers, and private semiconductor companies. These laboratories include research infrastructure in the areas of materials science, electro-optics, sensors and biotechnology as well as dedicated space for development engineering and low-volume product assembly. Nanohmics has a wide range of capabilities required for the successful completion of developmental engineering projects and R&D contracts.
Materials Science Laboratory.
The materials science laboratory is equipped with a variety of vacuum chamber systems, pumping equipment, and other peripherals that can be assembled into various test and growth chambers. Dedicated systems include a hot filament CVD diamond reactor and supersonic beam appartus for preparing low defect density films and integrated nanomaterial precursors. It also has a variety of fabrication and diagnostic equipment including a CVC 601 sputter deposition tool, a JEOL 820 scanning electron microscope, an ESI Model 44 Laser Saw, high magnification and stereo Nikon optical microscopes, and a Quad Group Romulus 4 Universal Mechanical Strength Tester. Nanohmics also utilizes local outsource contract analytical services from the Center for Nanoscience and Nanotechnolgy and The University of Texas, Pickle Research Center and Cerium Labs, a private spin-out analytical characterization venture from Advanced Micro Devices (AMD). Through these relationships with the University of Texas and a number of analytical laboratories in Austin it has access to high resolution scanning electron microscopes (SEM), transmission electron microscopes (TEM), profilometers, and other scanning probe metrology equipment such as atomic force microscopy (AFM). Nanohmics also has a relationship with Spares, LLC, a supplier of reconditioned semiconductor equipment, to lease any required vacuum and semiconductor fabrication equipment like plasma etch systems at nominal cost to the contract.
Electronics and Electro-Optics Laboratory.
The electronics and optoelectronics laboratory includes all the necessary equipment to design, conduct experiments, and construct optical based sensors and other research/consumer electro-optic instrumentation. The laboratory equipment includes high-end optical and fluorescence microscopes with DVC digital cameras and Imagepro PlusTM software, optical inspection microscopes, visible and near-infrared semiconductor diode lasers, high intensity GaN light emitting diodes, photomultiplier tubes, high-speed avalanche photodiodes, opto-mechanical mounts and vibration isolation equipment, and a Biotek Powerwave 200-800 nm microtiter plate spectrophotometer. Keithley SMUs and current/voltage sources, high-end computers equipped with data acquisition and digital input/output cards, and National Instruments’ LabView control and analysis software are used to rapidly design, implement, and test breadboard systems. Microcontrollers and microprocessors, along with state-of-the-art software development tools and in-circuit emulators are also available for the development of miniature optically based sensors and instruments. Additionally, Nanohmics stocks a wide range of optical and opto-mechanical components, light sources, photodiodes, general electrical components, and electronic support equipment for rapid fabrication of prototype hardware and instruments. Nanohmics also performs contract optical scatterometry services using an in-house tool developed originally for canopy optical radiation analysis.
Chemistry and Biochemistry Laboratory.
The chemistry and biochemistry laboratory consists of full wet chemistry and biochemistry workbenchs for performing simple synthetic procedures and biochemical analyses. The laboratory is equipped with hot plate/stirrers, microcentrifugation, water baths, ultrasonicators, vortex mixers, ovens and incubators, and refrigerators/freezers. Nanohmics chemistry laboratory has special chambers for performing emulsion polymerization and other microsphere/nanoscale syntheses. Nanohmics also has expertise in handling basic biomolecular chemistries including simple cell lines and antibodies particularly for diagnostics platforms involving surface immobilization/coupling chemistries for microfluidics. Through relationships with the University of Texas at Austin and industrial contract services such as Cerium Labs, Nanohmics has access to a number of chemical analytical tools such as 2D and 3D NMR, solid-state NMR, quadrapole mass spectrometry and reflectance infrared spectroscopy, and other benchtop tools such as Langmuir-Blodgett film deposition.
Prototype Engineering and Assembly.
Nanohmics maintains dedicated prototype engineering and development space for designing, constructing and assembling prototype instrumentation for research programs and applied development for commercial product manufacturing. Design facilities include CAD workstations using SolidWorksTM and AutoCADTM for industrial and mechancial design, DesignWorks Professional4TM for schematic capture, UltiboardTM for board layout and Pentalogix ViewMate 8.3TM as a Gerber inspection tool. National Instruments LabViewTM is used for basic interface control packages and MS Visual StudioTM (C++, Visual Basic) is used for full software application development which often incorporates embedded system hardware including Xilinx or Lattice programmable logic devices programmed using Integrated Software Environment (ISE) and Freescale or Microchip microcontrollers programmed using MPLABTM. Nanohmics maintains in-house machining and micromachining capabilities including lithographic processing, contact printing, basic milling machine, and drill press. Electronic boards are outsourced (PCBExpress, Crimp Circuits) along with board population (EMI, Inc Austin, TX). Nanohmics also regularly works with local rapid prototype machining/SLA,SLS (RPM Austin, Inc. and Accelerated Technologies) and machining/molding (DTS, Inc. and TPI, Inc.) to generate custom parts/tools using CNC milling, lathing, wire EDM, surface grinding and inspection equipment to support construction of prototype and low volume manufacturing projects.