Working With Local High-Tech Firms Creates Revenue Stream and Strong Industry Reputation for UA Engineering Lab
Small-scale fabrication at the UA leads to large-scale funding by industry.
Facility supervisor Omid Mahdavi, left, and a group of materials science and engineering students who use the lab as part of their course in microfabrication.
Tiny high-tech devices are big news for local industry at the University of Arizona Micro/Nano Fabrication Center.
The center provides commercial clients with prototyping services, clean room facilities and semiconductor chip fabrication equipment to develop new products, said Omid Mahdavi, facility supervisor.
Tucson-based Tempronics Inc., which recently raised $2.7 million in venture capital, used the Micro/Nano Fabrication Center to prototype and test new devices designed to convert waste heat into electricity, said Tarek Makansi, Tempronics CEO.
"When materials are made with features at nanometer dimensions, their physical properties change, and these new properties can be exploited for better performing products," Makansi said. "In our case, we are using nanometer properties of materials to make efficient thermoelectric devices for cooling and conversion of heat to electricity."
For example, up to 75 percent of the energy produced by internal combustion engines is wasted as heat. By converting waste heat into electricity, Tempronics' devices could double the mileage of hybrid electric cars, or provide additional power to automotive electrical systems in conventional vehicles.