At the intersection of materials, engineering, and new business creation
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Introduction Historians, though not having the perspective of materials scientists, have explicitly recognized the importance of materials throughout human history by giving eras names such as the Stone, Bronze, and Iron Ages.1 In more recent times, there have been numerous examples of how new materials or ways of manipulating materials have led to advances in engineering that, in turn, created new products and market opportunities. Modern air travel is, in large part, made possible by the capabilities of jet engines, with those capabilities, in turn, largely arising from the alloys used in the turbines that allow for reliable operation at very high temperatures.2 Everyday products from optical-fiber-delivered cable television to compact disc players to light-emitting diode light bulbs owe their existence to the invention of the molecular beam epitaxy process that enabled the creation of compound semiconductor materials at the atomic level.3 Of great potential, now and in the future, is the field of biomedical engineering, one aspect of which is the use of biomaterials in tissue engineering to replace and repair human organs.4 This article examines experiences in four companies in which the authors have been involved, where the intersection of materials and engineering were fundamental to creating the business. Rheonix’s microfluidic products are based on the
invention of a novel polymer adhesion process. Kionix is able to reliably manufacture high volumes of silicon microelectromechanical inertial sensors because of materials engineering of the surfaces and thin films used in the construction of the products. Mezmeriz solved an inherent tradeoff between speed and displacement of a micro-mirror device by integrating different classes of materials to optimize both performance parameters simultaneously. Incodema3D is exploiting the market opportunity created by additive manufacturing of metals while facing the challenges of materials characterization arising from this new fabrication process.
Microfluidic devices: Materials and processing Microfluidic devices have long been considered for economical disease detection and other diagnostic applications. Using small volumes of expensive reagents, leveraging opportunities for low-cost volume manufacturing and enhancing performance through optimum surface-to-volume ratios are some of the many motivations for microfluidic devices. In the early 2000s, many microfluidic5 devices were fabricated using silicon microfabrication. Although there were market demands for novel features that could be made in silicon, practical applications such as human in vitro diagnostics were hampered by the inability to handle “large” (1–10 ml)
Gregory J. Galvin, Rheonix, Inc., USA; [email protected] Peng Zhou, Rheonix, Inc., USA; [email protected] Timothy J. Davis, Kionix, Inc., USA; [email protected] Shahyaan Desai, Mezmeriz, Inc., USA; [email protected] Shane Collins, Incodema3D, LLC, USA; [email protected] DOI: 10.1557/mrs.2015.232
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MRS BULLETIN • VOLUME 40 • DECEMBER 2015 • www.
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