Israel: A Nanotech Superpower

Israel has already established itself as a key player in the cybersecurity, networking, social media and telecommunications sectors. Israel is also a hotbed for nanotechnology research and development.

Israel has the third-largest concentration of nanotechnology startup companies, surpassed only by California’s Silicon Valley and Boston’s technology corridor. Overall, the country has around 80 companies both large and small working in its nanotech sector.

The nation made the decision to focus on nanotechnology in 2007. Within five years, the sector was booming, with more than $101 million invested in basic equipment and an additional $45 million invested in new infrastructure and facilities. The country has even pooled its intellectual resources together, creating the Israel National Nanotechnology Initiative — it’s been charged with setting the country’s goals and priorities for the advancement of the nanotechnology.

Richard Robinson, a professor at Cornell University and a visiting scholar at the Hebrew University’s Institute of Chemistry, has called Israel “ahead of the curve on nanotechnology research.”

To date, Israeli nanotechnology researchers have filed over 1,500 patents, published over 10,000 scientific articles and demonstrated success with 129 nanotechnology innovations.

One of those successful innovations, as the Times of Israel highlights, is “semiconductor nanocrystals that can emit and provide extra brilliance to light,” making it possible to enhance the color of display screens. This success story was developed by Qlight, a company that was acquired by Merck in 2015.

Other projects in Israel’s nanotechnology development pipeline include “water purification membranes, agents for oral drug delivery, inkjet digital printing systems, diagnostic tools, holographic storage systems — and an ‘e-beam on a chip,’ which is similar to a laser beam, to be used for semiconductor manufacturing.”

“We have invested a lot of money in nanotech, but I am positive the investment will pay off big. We have so far 55 start-ups with unique ideas and projects that no one anywhere else is doing. If even just one of those turns into a billion-dollar company, that will have already made the investment worthwhile – and I believe we have a lot more than one of those unicorns on our side,” commented Dan Vilenski, an Israeli entrepreneur who believes nanotech will be the country’s next billion-dollar business.

Named the most innovative startup at the 2015 Israeli BioMed WOW competition, Quiet Therapeutics has developed a technology that uses nanoparticles to transport drugs to cancer sites while minimizing adverse effects. GAGomers, as they are called, are lipid nanoparticle clusters coated with glycosaminoglycan hyaluronan. According to Israel Rising, the company’s nanotechnology can be administered precisely to attack cancer cells. It has been tested successfully on ovarian cancer cells, and the company is now working on the testing phase with brain tumors.

Recently named Israel’s best-performing tech stock, Nano Dimension is a 3D printing company that Bloomberg has dubbed “a source of hope for Israeli entrepreneurs struggling to secure venture capital.” The company is using “advanced conductive and dielectric inks for ultra-rapid prototyping of complex, high-performance multilayer printed circuit boards.”

Nanotech startup NanoLock is also working on something that is relevant to much of today’s society. The company has developed a technology that kills bacteria inside an implant before they can invade the body and cause infections. According to CEO Dr. Ervin Weiss, NanoLock’s system “allows for the manufacture of polymer plastics that have anti-microbial properties.” That “can nearly eliminate bacteria that get into an implant, so that if any do get through, the body’s immune system can easily defeat it.”

Israel will be hosting its fifth annual International Nanotechnology Conference, NanoIsrael2016. The conference runs from February 22 to 23 in Tel Aviv.

Korean National Nanofab Centre

EV Group (EVG), a supplier of wafer bonding and lithography equipment for the MEMS, nanotechnology and semiconductor markets, has announced that it has supplied an EVG520IS semi-automated wafer bonding system with high-vacuum capability to the National Nanofab Center (NNFC), based in Daejeon, Korea. An affiliate of the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST), the NNFC has already installed the EVG520IS wafer bonder at its fab and is using it for advanced MEMS research and foundry services. The vacuum capability of the EVG system (up to 5x10-6 mbar) makes it ideally suited for MEMS applications that require a high-vacuum environment be maintained in the cavity after bonding, such as gyroscopes and micro-bolometers.

"NNFC's vision is to provide the critical infrastructure needed to support world-class nanotechnology research and business development. To that end, it is important that we have state-of-the-art process technology to support our key areas of research and foundry services, which include silicon CMOS, biochip technologies, nano-materials and MEMS," stated Dr. H.Y. Kim, department head of nanosystem research at NNFC. "EV Group is a recognized leader in wafer bonding, which is an enabling technology for advanced MEMS R&D and manufacturing. This recent purchase of the EVG520IS wafer bonder will enable us as well as our partners and customers to have ready access to process technology that is critical to advanced MEMS R&D and production."

For several decades, EVG has had a strong presence in Korea working closely with local device manufacturers, academia and research institutes in the micro- and nanoelectronics industries. EV Group Korea Ltd. was founded as a wholly owned subsidiary in 2008 to further improve and enhance local support for EVG's customers and partners. In addition to local sales, customer support, field service and spare parts management teams, EV Group Korea has its own technology development and process technology teams.

"EVG has a long history of partnering with academia and research institutes, like KAIST and the NNFC, which are at the leading edge of developing new processes and technologies that drive the micro-electronics and nanotechnology industries," stated Paul Lindner, executive technology director at EV Group. "These collaborations are an important part of our strategy of identifying opportunities where our process solutions can play an enabling role in developing new micro- and nanotechnology end-products and applications. We're pleased to offer our products and services to the NNFC in support of our shared mission and vision of furthering nanotechnology development, education and commercialization."

Innovate UK to Invest in North Wales Photonics Cluster

Innovate UK is to invest up to £500,000 in research and development projects centered on the emerging cluster of photonics, electro-optics, and opto-electronics businesses in North Wales.

It is seeking to fund projects that have the potential to create new products and services. The end market applications can be broad, including optical communications, manufacturing and materials processing, health and life science, lighting, energy, security and safety.

Innovate UK is looking for projects that may be too risky for companies to take forward without any support, or that may take them into new innovative areas, and where the majority of the project activities are carried out in North Wales. It is working in collaboration with the Welsh Government and the Welsh Opto-Electronics Forum with the aim to draw further investment and people into the area, and to encourage networking and collaboration to strengthen the cluster.

It will fund industrial research projects, with estimated project sizes ranging between £50,000 and £90,000. Projects can last up to 12 months and must be led by a micro, small or medium-sized company that is likely to be in the early stages of its development. Businesses can work alone or in collaboration. Micro and small businesses will receive up to 70 percent of eligible costs, medium-sized businesses 60 percent.

An integral part of Launchpad is the offer of support to help applicants to raise additional new external finance that might be needed to fully fund the project and its subsequent commercialization.

In addition to receiving project funding, successful applicants will participate in a programme of business support and growth activities that will run in parallel to projects.

The competition opens for applicants on 22 February 2016. The deadline for video submissions is at noon on 6 April 2016.

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