Archive for July, 2008

Silicon Monocrystal Nanocalorimeter

July 23, 2008 at 3:48 pm · Filed under Materials ·Tagged ,

Prof. Francois Schiettekatte and his research team (University of Montréal) have managed, for the first time, to downscale calorimetry to the nano level.

We believe that Prof. Francois Schiettekatte’s nanocalorimeter could become a breakthrough for the study of fundamental phenomena in nano- and self-organised structures, as well as in micro- and opto-electronic systems. It will enable the study, from a thermal point of view, of surfaces and near-surface phenomena on an atomically pure, ordered and well documented surface.

Features:
Thin layer of monocrystalline semi-conductor
Minimize the thermal losses by conduction.
In-situ measurements
Common semiconductor manufacturing processes

Examples of applications :
Energy involved in the reordering of surface atoms during epitaxial growth,
Formation and evolution of nanostructures on surface,
Solid phase reactions in ultra-thin films,
Self-ordering of organic molecules on surface,
Investigation of catalysis reaction
Heat produced by biological processes.

Prototype measurements results and pictures of the prototype are available upon request. Contact us if of interest!
A US provisional patent has been filed and we’re seeking a strategic partner to support its development and to commercialize it.

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The Duo Gown: From Term Project To Commercialization

July 15, 2008 at 12:37 am · Filed under Textile ·Tagged , , ,

In 2006, Noémi Marquis, an undergraduate student at Université de Montréal’s School of Industrial Design, came up with a new design of the traditional hospital gown as her final-year project. Supervised by Prof. Denyse Roy, Director of the School’s Meta-Textile Laboratory, she has been developing the Duo Gown.
Compared to current gowns, the Duo Gown covers the entire body by means of two half-gowns worn simultaneously. Then, there are no potentially embarrassing openings for the patients. Furthermore, since it has no draw strings, it gives easy access by physicians, nurses and other health professionals.
Thanks to the persistence of the researchers and of Mr. Pierre Patenaude, a Research Officer with UdeM’s Office of Research Services and Development, this story did not end there. It has been transmitted to Univalor, which filed an US patent and started commercial discussions with potential partners. Later, a license agreement has been signed with a Quebec company.
The Duo Gown has also been widely publicized across Quebec and Canada: Radio Canada, 24 heures, Advantage Research. Hopefully it will become soon a commercial success.

New Files
In the meantime, Pierre has just sent us 4 new projects arising from University of Montreal School of Industrial Design. As usual, you should read here about these innovations within a few weeks…

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Have You Experienced Flintbox? We Did, We Do, We’ll Continue!

July 11, 2008 at 5:25 pm · Filed under Technology Transfer ·Tagged

Flintbox is a global intellectual property exchange providing easy and open access to innovation you can access at Flintbox. So if you did experience Flintbox, you certainly know or got in contact with any of Lindsay, Meira or Steve, all remarquable, profesionnal and charming persons.

Flintbox is really of interest if you are involved in innovation and research. It’s a platform that enables connections between people and organizations having common interests in this domain.

While as involved in technology transfer on behalf of the institutions we represent, we use Flintbox as an exposure tool for our technologies, eventually a licensing tool for software and other copyrights, it can accomodate any of your needs. You can build collaboration for your research, you can post your needs and use it to screen for available technologies or research interests, you can present your services.

So far, experience with Flintbox is great! First of all, it’s very easy to use and to maintain information, in addition to providing interesting statistics. Then, we have been contacted by numerous companies through Flintbox. Currently, part of the traffic on Univalor’s website is coming through Flintbox. Bottom line (we always get there no?), by using Flintbox, we’ve been able to multiply our business development capabilities and activities with current staff.

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RGB Color Generation. A new solution for Pico Projectors?

July 9, 2008 at 3:19 pm · Filed under Optics, Photonic, image and video ·Tagged , , ,

Ever thought of watching movies using your smartphone on an airplane, on the train or on the subway? You can!

Pico projectors are becoming more and more popular (see: 2007 Pico-Projector Market Segment Analysis). Recently, TI announced to have implemented one into BlackBerry curve.

Raman Kashyap and Amirhossein Tehranchi have reached a new milestone towards the direction of pure RGB colors. They propose to use a fiber based wavelength converter as an RGB source. Do you think it could be used within a pico projector?

A first prototype is currently being developed. First publications and simulation results are however already available.

In the meantime, watch this AMAZING video:

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Involved in Techtransfer? You should attend Techconnect Summit!

July 7, 2008 at 6:06 pm · Filed under Communication, Optics, Photonic, Technology Transfer

Just to be clear, I’m not an employee of Techconnect organization, but I’m a user of this forum and a great fan, and I try to disseminate my true motivation with that kind of even both internally and externally. 

This year was the third time in three that we participated to Techconnect Summit (http://www.techconnect.org/Summit2008/). If you have been there this week of June 2008 in Boston, you certainly heard about the “photonic guitar”. Thanks to Raman Kashyap, the inventor and to Pierre-Matthieu Demizieux, his student, that was us (http://techupdateunivalor.wordpress.com/2008/02/25/88/)!

If you were not able to be there, you should plan next year.  Why’s that? First of all, you will be able to see another great invention from one of the institutions Univalor serves! But more importantly, whatever you are involved in technology transfer from university or other organization, or an industry player or an investor, that’s certainly the kind of place you want to be every year. In a very compact 2-3 days show, you will be able to meet with representatives from the industry whom, through their vision of the future of their company, will be able to define areas of interests. You will be able to meet with investors in your new technology based venture. You will be able to meet with researchers and technology transfer professionals to access worldclass technologies and R&D capabilities. All of the above having in common the fact that they  consider innovation as a driver for growth.

Let’s hope that there will be more and more initiatives such as Techconnect Summit so we can streamline the process of technolgoy transfer. It could be in many ways, area or domain specific, it could be virtual as well.

And if you are skeptical about such match-making conference, I am pretty sure you will find organizations, such as ours, that made deals following such an event.  More than that, I made friends almost all over the world!

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An UNIQUE Solution to current Spectrogram Analyzer Limitations!

July 3, 2008 at 8:33 pm · Filed under Communication, Photonic ·Tagged , , , ,

Heard about CRLH leaky wave antennas? They are capable to radiate from backfire to endfire.

Prof. Christophe Caloz, École Polytechnique de Montreal, and Shulabh Gupta have been developped a new spectrogram analyzer which uses the unique properties of CRLH antennas.
This system is time and frequency independent and enables monitoring, in real-time, UWB signals. Then, it opens doors to faster and more reliable signal measurement and characterization.

This system is fully tested and characterized with a first prototype and we’re looking for an industrial partner interested in moving to commercialization. Interested?
Further info is also available on Flintbox…

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