PSE Success Story - Technology Licensing:
Argonne Founds Spin-off Company to Spur Commercialization of UNCD® Technology

In 2003, Argonne National Laboratory established a start-up company, Advanced Diamond Technologies (ADT), Inc., to commercialize its Ultrananocrystalline Diamond (UNCD) coating technology. The UNCD technology has already resulted in several products introduced into the market, such as UNCD-coated mechanical pump seals, atomic force microscope tips, and UNCD-coated wafers for microelectromechanical and nanoelectromechanical systems research and development.

"Argonne is the first national laboratory to launch a spin-off company in which the founding scientist and the laboratory hold equity. Our pioneering model with ADT has initiated a new paradigm that is now repeated in other national laboratories for commercialization of technologies,” said Orlando Auciello, Argonne Distinguished Fellow and co-founder of ADT. “The company and the jobs it has created would not exist were it not for the basic and applied research that the U.S. Department of Energy funds at Argonne.”

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• Argonne Founds Spin-off Company to Spur Commercialization of UNCD® Technology (3.22 MB pdf)

July 2010