The optical spectrometer, which makes it possible to interpret the exactproperties of light and materials that reflect and project light, hasbecome one of the most powerful instruments in modern science. However,it is also a bulky and expensive device–or at least it will beuntil University of Pittsburgh spin-off NanoLambda begins to manufacture its widely anticipatedspectrometer-on-a-chip, Spectrum Sensor®.
That event remains on track thanks to a recent $500,000 National Science Foundation grant to support the collaboration of NanoLambda and the University of Pittsburgh in the development of this new technology.
“We will use this funding to help create the engineered device and are looking forward to having a commercial product ready sometime in late 2010,” says Bill Choi, NanoLambda’s founder and president.
The NanoLambda chip will add the advantages of small-size portability and extremely low cost to the powerful probing capacity of spectroscopic analysis. With this innovation, a long list of opportunities will almost certainly open in medicine and other fields where the values of light and color create knowledge and valuable insights.
One potential application would be for a monitor of hemoglobin levels that doesn’t require pricking the skin. Many other portable devices that read internal body conditions are also foreseen as applications of the chip. Its potential extends to many other industries that depend upon exact readings of color values, as in the manufacturing of paints, big screen TVs, and color printers.
Current instruments that capture such valuable information cost from $3,000 to $30,000. The NanoLambda will strike a pricing point that falls somewhere at less than 1/100th of that price range.
The NanoLambda chip may even capture colors of the rainbow that stream toward the proverbial pot of gold–in this case, an estimated $1 billion market.
Source: NanoLambda, Bill Choi
Writer: Joseph Plummer
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