Agilent recently announced the formation of the Materials Science Solution Unit under Michael Gasparian, Vice President and General Manager.  The formation of this business unit is a strong indication of Agilent’s commitment to bring innovative high precision measurements to the nano world.  The new business unit will focus on the atomic force imaging and optical microscopy products for those of you developing new nanotechnology materials.  The business unit will combine Agilent’s strength in electronic and bioanalytical measurements with new microscopy products.  To see the complete annoucement click on this link — http://www.agilent.com/about/newsroom/presrel/2007/30mar-gp07008.html

What combinations of measurements would you like to see for nanoscale materials applications?

According to Lux Research government spending on nanotechnology grew 10% to $6.4B worldwide in 2006.  The U.S. leads the spending with $1.78B with Japan at $975M and Germany at $563M.  However, if you take into account the purchasing power of goods and services–China reaches second place with funding the equivalent of $906M.  This would explain the interest we received during our “Agilent in Nanotechnology” seminar tour in China.

The researchers in China are using a number of measurement instruments including atomic force microscopes, semiconductor analyzers, network analyzers, multimeters, pulse generators, and power supplies.  Our instructors were delighted with interesting questions during the breaks and lunch hour regarding instrument functionality and measurement techniques.