A team of researchers at the University of Pennsylvania has won the National Science Foundation (NSF)’s Innovation Corps award, which recognizes research work that has the prospects for commercial uses and links researchers to entrepreneurial resources.
The research team comprises Charlie Johnson, who serves as Professor of physics and astronomy in the School of Arts and Sciences at the University of Pennsylvania, Michael Patterson, a Wharton Executive MBA program’s member, and Zhengtang Luo, a postdoctoral fellow in the lab of Johnson. The university’s UPstart program and Center for Technology Transfer brought them together.
Upstart, the University of Pennsylvania’s business incubator for its technologies, assisted the team to incept its start-up company named Graphene Frontiers as well as supported it to participate in the NSF award program.
Graphene finds applications from consumer electronics to scientific equipment but with the existing production technologies it is possible to manufacture small flakes of graphene at a time. Graphene Frontiers' technology is economical and more reliable and can produce large graphene sheets at atmospheric pressure and room temperature.
Luo stated that since the start-up’s technology takes place at atmospheric pressure, it can produce graphene in a simple method at a lower cost. The overall manufacturing system is simple, economical and more versatile, he said. The $50,000 prize comes with the award and will be utilized to finance Luo's position as Chief Scientific Officer of Graphene Frontiers.
As part of the award program, the research team will participate in a NSF workshop to be conducted at Stanford University, where they will take part in a crash course to handle the obstacles faced by technology start-ups. They will also have the chance to work with the prospective investors and conduct business seminars via the NSF during 2012. Upstart will provide its continuous support to Graphene Frontiers via this process.