Nanotech printing on the way

A New Hampshire company, putting down Silicon Valley roots, is developing nano-printing technologies that could eventually make better electronics, labeling and even the foundation for human skin cells.

The business, called Dimatix, currently employs about 50 people in its Santa Clara offices, where it is developing ink-jet printing technologies for a wide range of possible uses. Some futuristic uses of Dimatix’s super-small ink jets could include making semiconductor interconnects, or electronic screen displays so thin and flexible they wrap around a column in a department store.

Dimatix is developing a new generation of print heads that can deposit microscopic droplets of conductive ink, or even droplets of organic materials. They call these nano-particle inks, because they are at the atomic level in size, or smaller than a virus. If you took 1,000 nano-particles and lined them up side by side, they would equal the width of a human hair.

By Therese Poletti

Mercury News

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