| "In our innocence, we decided we could turn this into something people would actually want to buy." Professor Max Lagally |
From their research with the very small, Materials Science Professor Max G. Lagally and Jim MacKay, a former post doctoral researcher in the UW-Madison Synchrotron Radiation Center, have formed something that could become very big.
In March 1997, Lagally and MacKay incorporated PIEZOMAX Technologies. Based in the University Research Park, this start-up company designs and manufactures ultra-high precision motion devices that operate at extremely high frequencies. Ultimately, this technology enables such advances as faster computers, more reliable electronic data storage devices, improved contact lenses and increasingly accurate medical instruments.
At the core of their start-up company is a control system for scanning tunneling microscopes (STMs) developed several years ago by graduate student Steve Walker. The system enhances the performance of positioners made from piezoelectric materials (those which expand or contract when voltage is applied, and produce a voltage when under pressure or tension). Piezoelectric positioners are an essential component of the STMs that Professor Lagally builds and uses in his materials science research, and are used in a myriad of other devices as well.
The PIEZOMAX team meets with customer Mike Szulczewski (second from right) of Waunakee-based Prairie Technologies, LLC. Pictured from left: Bill O'Brien, Max G. Lagally, Shelley Lagally, Szulczewski and Jim MacKay.
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The key to Walker's design was its ability to move the piezoelectric positioner for large as well as extremely small distances both quickly and with precision. "In our work, we need to move Angstroms or fractions of Angstroms precisely," explains Lagally. "We always wanted a way to do this quickly. " Walker's work, with assistance from Lagally and mechanical engineering Professor Robert Lorenz, accomplished that goal. Early in 1998, the three received a patent for the electronic controller through the Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation.
"In our innocence," says Lagally, "we decided we could turn this into something that people would actually want to buy. We started looking at how broad a vision this technology might apply to."
Helping them along were two Small Business Innovation Research grants, which partnered them with a couple of California companies. The first grant, with Komag Materials Technology, involves developing precision machining tools for applying substrates to computer disks. Komag is a leading manufacturer of thin-film disks, the primary storage medium for digital data used in computer disk drives.
The second SBIR grant is in partnership with KLA-Tencor, a world-leading supplier to the semiconductor industry. It involves improving a surface metrology tool--the ultra-high resolution profilometer--so that it can measure features, such as bumps on the surfaces of integrated circuits, with improved spacial resolution and an order of magnitude faster than presently possible.
The KLA-Tencor partnership involves CEO Ken Schroeder, a graduate of the college. "Having a national network of highly successful alumni who are in key corporate posts is very important to UW and Wisconsin," says Assistant Dean Lawrence A. Casper. "It greatly strengthens our ties to the national and global economy."
Soon after Lagally and MacKay relocated their business to the MG&E Innovation Center in the UW Research Park, they decided they could no longer work just on electronics and control systems. "What was out there to control wasn't actually good enough; we had to start making the hardware, too," says Lagally. So in the fall of 1997, PIEZOMAX began designing and building precision motion stages--little mechanical devices, driven by a piezo, that amplify the piezo's motion.
Bill O'Brien, who like MacKay had been a researcher at the Synchrotron Radiation Center, joined PIEZOMAX in June 1998 and is now the chief designer for a line of positioner products that achieve precision motion at the nanometer (one-billionth of a meter) scale. "Our products are unique in that they are faster than anybody else's," notes Lagally. "They are more precise in their ability to position any device mounted on them."
One satisfied customer has been Prairie Technologies, LLC, of Waunakee, founded about three years ago by College of Engineering alumni Mike Szulczewski and Don Wolf. With five full-time employees, Prairie manufactures integrated hardware and software tools for the biomedical research community. Two of Prairie's systems have already been purchased by physiology researchers at UW-Madison.
"Basically," explains Szulczewski, "we make specialty microscopes for cellular imaging of the brain. Such work requires researchers to position fine probes that may be either an electrode or an optical fiber." New developments, such as Prairie's biological near-field microscope system, are requiring the resolution of fiber positioning to be as fine as four nanometers. To achieve this desired precision, Prairie has developed a positioning device using a custom-designed piezo from PIEZOMAX.
"We are delighted to be working with PIEZOMAX and look forward to further developing our relationship," says Szulczewski. "Many evolving areas in biological research will create the need to develop fine positioning devices. This alliance will help position Prairie as the leader in high precision tools for the biological community."
--By Paul Bauman--
| For further information, please contact: |
Max G. Lagally, 608/263-2078
lagally@engr.wisc.edu or
lagally@piezomax.com
http://piezomax.com
Copyright 1999 The Board of Regents of the University of Wisconsin System
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Date last modified: Wednesday, 03-Mar-1999 12:00:00 CST
Date created: 03-Mar-1999
