So they hit the rental market and paid for lab time at Cornell University's Nanoscale Science and Technology Facility.
Thirteen nano-level university laboratories across the country are hiring themselves out to businesses eager to make their mark in the millennium of the minuscule. The intimidatingly named National Nanotechnology Infrastructure Network http://www.nnin.org/ , begun in 2004, is funded in part with $14 million a year from the National Science Foundation.
Full Story: http://www.technologyreview.com/Wire/19885/?nlid=748