News > August 23, 2007

By Steve Ettanani | Staff writer

The university’s latest technological endeavors are focused on nanotechnology.

Nanotechnology encompasses the research and development that occurs at the most miniscule of levels, the nanometer, or one billionth of a meter.

Determined to bring the Piedmont to the forefront of nanotechnology, the university’s Center for Nanotechnology and Molecular Materials is taking the necessary steps to ally with businesses in order to promote this technology.

The Wake Forest University Nanotechnology Center is allying with the Piedmont Triad Research Park and the Babcock Demon Incubator. This alliance will further the university’s goal to make North Carolina the nation’s center of nanotechnology.

The alliance will enable start-up companies to have easy access to resources and information from speakers at conferences.

The alliance will intend to promote and persuade professionals in the field to come to the area and increase the level of expertise in nanotechnology.

The Wake Forest University Nanotechnology Center, which was created just three years ago, is being recognized as an up-and-coming “hub” for productive and essential development surrounding the field. The center is made up of three laboratories, one on the university’s Reynolda Road campus, one at the university’s School of Medicine and finally one on Deacon Boulevard.

Recently, the U.S. Department of Defense gave the center a multi-million dollar grant to develop technology involving the development of materials that can effectively bend light or “negative-index” materials. Additionally, the center is hard at work developing ways to combat cancer earlier.

The center is doing extensive research on solar energy, and creating flexible solar cells that will more effectively use the sun’s light for energy.

Recently, the center noted that it created a flexible cell that was able to convert 6 percent of the sunlight that hit it into energy.

As a solo project the university has launched two nanotechnology startup companies, FiberCell and PlexiLight to turn developed technologies into products for the commercial marketplace.

FiberCell plans to create the next generation of solar cells to boost efficiency. While PlexiLight will work towards developing a lighting source that produces visible light directly rather than as a by-product of heating a filament or gas.

David Carroll, the director of the Nanotechnology Center, said that this is only the beginning of a long series of progress for the center. He is so confident in the work that he said “Winston-Salem will be the center of the universe for solar power.”