SemiSerious

Slogans, marketing, and heavy-handed branding dominate our consumer society. Whether we are letting our fingers do the walking, in good hands with All-State, or the best a man can get, it’s hard to escape the advertisers who maximize every opportunity to shape our thinking. The tech world is no different of course. We have “Intel inside” and its jingle, TI’s “Technology for Innovators,” and Samsung’s “Digital World.” But these are all still for profit organizations beholden to share holders.

It’s unusual to think of academia in the same light as the big corporations, but maybe things are changing. University researchers need to sell their ideas to a certain extent to establish and maintain funding sources. In the past, I thought profs focused their efforts on publishing in journals and speaking at academic conferences. There are a few, though, who seek more limelight.

Semiconductor International recently covered an announcement from Rensaler Polytechnic Institute (RPI) about nanoblades produced by oblique angle deposition. You might already be wondering about that catchy name. I’m probably a little jealous, but nanoblades is certainly a term that grabs our attention. I have no quarrel with the term or perhaps even the novelty of the structure. However, it is misleading to talk about nanoblades as “vastly different from any other nanomaterial that has been created before.”

I assume that Semiconductor International and RPI researcher Gwo-Ching Wang referred to another leader in this field when referring to the fact that “most nanotech researchers aim to produce interesting 3-D structures such as nanotubes, nanorods or nanosprings. A well-established research team at the University of Alberta in Edmonton, Canada have created many unique structures using similar low-angle deposition techniques. The GLAD - or Glancing Angle Deposition - group is led by Dr. Michael Brett. Their work is primarily related to optical devices.

Okay, I can hear people saying, “Why are nanoblades catchy but GLAD films are okay?” Well, that’s true and although I thought this post was going to relatively short, it’s rapidly expanding into the type of pro-Canadian diatribe that I am usually against. I only want to do my part to promote Dr. Brett’s team and their work. Since the point of the original Semiconductor International article appeared to be the potential for nanoblade film use in fuel cells because of the large surface area they offered, it was unbalanced journalism to suggest that blades were an advancement over rods and springs. If you are questioning the available surface areas of the GLAD films, please take the time to visit the team’s image gallery.

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