NanoSonic’s Metal Rubber™ cited as a top 50 nanotechnology

Blacksburg, VA, July 8, 2006 –– Metal Rubber™, developed by NanoSonic, Inc. of Blacksburg, Va., is among the “Top 50” technologies, products, and innovators that have “significantly impacted or who are expected to impact” the state on the art in nanotechnology.

Jennifer Hoyt Lalli, 31, the primary developer of Metal Rubber™, will receive the honor at the Nano 50 Awards Dinner at the NASA Tech Briefs National Nano Engineering Conference (NNEC) in Boston, November 9 and 10, 2006.

Metal Rubber™ was one of only 13 products incorporating nanotechnology listed among the “Top 50” winners. The other 37 recipients were in the technology or innovator categories.

NanoSonic believes that when Metal Rubber™ was announced in 2004, it represented the first time that a full-sized, macro material had been manufactured using the microscopic process of nanotechnology. By assembling Metal Rubber™ molecule by molecule, Lalli was able to synthesize this new elastic material with the conductivity of metal.

The environmentally friendly, non-toxic material is most unusual in the sense that it can conduct electricity, even when stretched. These properties appeal to the microelectronics, biomedical, aeronautical, and automotive industries.

Lalli’s work was also instrumental in the development of a “modified” electro-static self assembly processing approach that allows a significant speed up of the self-assembly procedure, yielding materials such as Metal Rubber™, at a rate on the order of millimeters of thickness per hour of synthesis time. This improvement is significant to both potential commercial scale-up, and to the production of nanomaterials that are of practical use in the macroworld.

After the company announced Metal Rubber™ in 2004 , Lockheed Martin announced on its partnering with NanoSonic a few months later because of its interest in transparencies and because Lalli had achieved scale-up of nanomaterials, and the partnership specifically cited Metal Rubber™.

Word of the new material appeared in PopularScience’s August, 2004 issue that reported Metal Rubber™ “could make its commercial debut in a year” in the electronics industry. The Economist magazine on June 10, 2004 said: “in addition to making improved artificial muscles, this material (Metal Rubber™) could be used to make flexible electronic circuits, antennae or mirrors…ideal for use in cameras, space probes, or satellites.”

ScienCentral News, a N.Y. based production company funded in part by the National Science Foundation, distributed on Sept. 14, 2004 to ABC networks nationwide a segment on Metal Rubber™. It reported many “potential uses…one of the most exciting…being morphing aircraft wings” allowing aircraft to “dynamically change the shape of their wings and their control surfaces during flight.”

Lalli received her master’s and Ph.D. in chemistry from Virginia Tech in 1999 and in 2001, respectively. She earned her bachelor’s degree in chemistry from Penn State in 1996. In the past four years, she has generated some $7.5 million in research contracts and grants.

Nanotech Briefs, sponsor of the awards, is a digital magazine from the publishers of NASA Tech Briefs – the country’s largest-circulation design engineering magazine - that provides the best of government, industry, and university nanotech innovations with real-world applications in areas such as electronics, materials, sensors, manufacturing, biomedical, optics/photonics, and aerospace/defense.

The 2006 NNEC is produced for design engineers who want to learn more about the future world of nanotechnology.

“The winners of the Nano 50 awards are the "best of the best." These are the innovative people and designs that will move nanotechnology to key mainstream markets, according to Nanotech Briefs.

A panel of nanotechnology experts judged the Nano 50 nominations.

CONTACT:

www.nanosonic.com

540 953 1785