This new approach to particle characterization can have a strong impact on a wide range of applications - from processing of ceramic nanopowders to measuring and identifying environmental pollutants. Synergetic Technologies, Inc., established at the campus s business incubator last March, is developing an innovative particle characterization technology for small particles ranging from nano to micron scale, said Craig Saltiel, Ph.D., one of the firm s three founders and its president. With his partners, Synergetics vice president of technology development Siva Manickavasagam, Ph.D., and vice president for research and development Pinar Menguc, Ph.D., Saltiel is creating a technology based on polarized light scattering. By polarizing light before and after it impinges on a cloud of particles, he explained, a number of scattering signals can be measured. Those signals provide a wealth of information about the nature of the particles - their size and size distribution, and their shape and structure.
Most devices provide a mean effective spherical diameter of particles regardless of their shape.
By measuring multiple signals and correctly interpreting them using sophisticated software we have developed, particle sizes and shapes can be determined more accurately - a real challenge in the fine, or submicron, and ultrafine, or nano, size ranges. Ultrafine particles have a tendency to agglomerate. We have developed methods to examine agglomerate structure and differentiate agglomerates from single particles. Synergetic Technologies work has applications for many industries, added Saltiel. Those applications include the manufacture of advanced ceramics, nano-materials, powder metals, polymers, fiber optics, and pharmaceuticals.