I this is like black belt ninja I am so
excited to interview our next
interviewer interviewee so she’s written
30 papers she has like 20 to 30 patents
she has three degrees from MIT
she was course 6 1.1 and she’s just
awesome so a friend of mine said that AI
is big and I like to call AI assistant
intelligence and people know that AI is
coming it’s going to impact our world
but the friend of mine said I think Nano
is gonna be bigger than AI how many of
you don’t even know what I mean when I
say Nano not clear hasn’t gotten the
memo
the idea of nano and and the science
implications just haven’t the memo
hasn’t been sent around the implications
for for everyday people you know just
don’t know and here sitting next to me
is one of the leaders in the Nano space
so we’re gonna explore but we’re gonna
you know go go go small can you
introduce yourself and just say a little
bit about yourself and she’s a CEO and
she raised ten million dollars for a
prior company but this one she’s
bootstrapping and it’s gonna it’s saving
lives but yes you’re I’m Marci black I’m
the CEO and co-founder of advanced
silicon group and a Vance Lincoln group
is commercializing silicon nanowires
which are very thin but long single
crystalline material of silicon silicon
switch used in all electronic well most
electronics so we’re using these silicon
you know airs for many applications but
the two main applications that we’re
focused on are for photovoltaics or
solar cells how many of you have solar
panels on your roof
how many of you don’t that’ll be more
interesting I mean you don’t oh yeah I’m
just the pointed there’s only a three no
but your technology has gone mainstream
to make it more practical um so let me
get back to that but the other
technology that were commercializing is
biosensors using the Nano wares and I
think we’re talking about that yeah a
couple questions but um um so in
photovoltaics the technology is known as
black silicon not named after me but
because this silicon is very black and
it actually now about 90% of the multi
crystalline silicon technology being
made uses black silicon so the zipper
took seven years to be commercialized
velcro took about the same amount if
you’re wearing a iPhone watch that has
an Olo OLED in it that took about 20
years to commercialize where are we in
making things in you know the research
you’re an engineer the science that
you’ve done in nano where are we in
terms of making it you know can can
impact our lives you know people know
the generation was brought up when the
light bulb
you know came around you know we have
these mobile smartphones we we know that
the world kind of changed when those
technologies went mainstream as the
expert as a leader so and who’s running
a company bet in the farm on it but
where are we and and and you know how
soon this getting some traction and
maybe we’re already there yeah so I’ve
been working in nano for over 20 years
and when I first started in you know it
was really focused on understanding the
new material properties and nano is
really exciting because when were as
material scientists when we’re designing
a material for an application we’re
limited to only the elements and the
molecules you know the elements on the
periodic table and those combinations so
nanomaterials is really exciting because
it enables you to alter those material
properties and optimize them for for
vacations so it opens up a whole new
toolbox so about 20 years ago when I was
starting in this field it was really
focused on understanding how you can
change the properties of knit using nano
materials and nano engineering um now
it’s really changed and the focus is
still on the science but there’s a lot
of focus on how to use these
technologies so maybe what one thing
people don’t know is that the Nano
market right now is well actually my
numbers are old they’re 2012 so they’re
bigger now 700 million are billion yeah
that’s okay 700 billion dollars yeah
that’s a big so the 700 billion so you
know what actually tell us when you say
nano so you have a sum here like how
many you know nano units are you using
when you’re how much can a you know the
the head of a hair hold so roughly about
a million nano wires can fit in the head
of a hair okay and and so so you
mentioned that it has signed it you know
can you yeah
something to do with solar what about
bio as we think about you know
healthcare costs are going up and up and
up
you know his bio is the bio space what
can you do with nano you know lat is it
a lab-on-a-chip is it did you know
Fantastic Voyage in the 1960s putting
things and inside your body I know
actually the in 1992 notice but at
Dartmouth and NASA they created a camera
that could see that ended up being the
camera in our iPhones because they
wanted to create something that could go
into outer space or in the body but it
didn’t really work out it’s done much
better and it’s like the machine
learning and computer vision but where
are we in terms of that for for bio so
there’s a lot of nanotech and related
and there’s so there’s some of the
applications not necessarily that what
what I’m working on but I know people
are using nanomaterials to introduce it
into the body and then they’re able to
deliver drugs more specifically to the
area that needs the drugs so if someone
has a tumor you can locally release the
drugs right near the tumor instead of
doing invasive surgery where you have to
recuperate and you may get sicker
because of that you can use nano to send
something within the body yeah some some
people are doing that um other people
are using it to help surgeons so they
can put florescent elements that bind to
where the tumors are so that you can see
more clearly where where the surgeon
needs to operate what we’re doing is
Diagnostics so it’s for a blood test you
can it’s more sensitive because of the
higher surface area of the nanomaterials
so that’s a really interesting point
that that may get missed can you go into
that why is when you go nano why is
there a ratio or surface area
opportunity there to do things that are
extraordinary that you just can’t do
with things you can hold hold in your
hand yeah so when when you go Nano the
volume decreases but the surface area
increases so you’re a lot more sensitive
to the environment around the nano
material so the material properties
depend a lot on what’s happening around
it and so that makes it very well
aligned to things like sensors so you
can have higher sensitivity because of
that so going to detail about what
you’re doing you built the team and
you’ve bootstrap this venture what are
you what are you trying to do you said
it has to do with diagnostic and walk us
through what do you hope to do with nano
technology so on the biosensing side
we’re focused on developing a bio sensor
and one application for this is for
monitoring the treatment of lung cancer
so when someone is diagnosed with lung
cancer it’s obviously not very good but
if they have a particular mutation for
which there’s a targeted treatment for
the prognosis is actually pretty pretty
encouraging for them so the patient can
undergo the targeted treatment wish
hacks that cancer cells and not not the
the healthy cells the problem comes when
during that treatment they cancer
mutates and the treatment is no longer
that the cancer is no longer responsive
to the treatment and the doctors don’t
usually know that that mutation has
occurred until after the the whole
treatment period when the patient’s
health continues to deteriorate so what
we are developing as a way to offer the
doctors a way to measure throughout the
treatment period whether that treatment
is working and if not dynamically alter
it yep so the fact that we can’t see
nano with our eye you know does that
make it hard for people to comprehend it
and what are you what are some of the
predictions of the future of nano that
that you know some of the people in the
room may may be excited to share that
they may not know so I think you’re
right it is hard I’m guessing that most
people didn’t realize that nanos already
being commercialized and it’s currently
used in like in clothing to create water
repellent clothes it’s used in a lot
most of your sunscreen has nanoparticles
it’s used in solar cells so it is all
over I think people don’t realize that
so going forward what I would like to
see is nano improving treatment making
lowering the cost of treatment for
diseases and improving people’s health
and also lowering the cost of renewable
energy yep I know you know a lot of
money spent on putting our data in the
cloud and you know it’s a you know it’s
a fraction of the world economy but as
we put more and more stuff in the cloud
it’s gonna be more expensive does nano
could nano help on energy and help on
distributing information so there’s less
latency you know with augmented reality
which is like a 200 billion dollar
market I think in the next five to ten
years you seen a know having
implications for these other tangential
orthogonal spaces yeah I mean
just thinking about it for two seconds I
could see nanomaterials helping create
superconductors for example to decrease
the transmission loss and the latency
people are also looking at using very
clever ways of using nano materials for
non-volatile memory so – so that you
don’t you can have a smaller space and
use less power to store the same amount
of memory ya know people say that the
batteries holding us back in in terms of
a lot of digital devices and I think
Nano is gonna be a player there so
you’re a hero to many but we had a hero
can we throw milli up we have two
pictures of milli can you say something
about how milli inspired you and what
her legacy is she’s like the the
godmother of nano a little bitter she is
the queen of carbon so Millie
dresselhaus I was fortunate enough to be
one of her advisees for my PhD thesis
and so Millie has made amazing strides
in in nano but in particular in carbon
nanotubes and thermal electrics and what
I asked John to mention that to me today
because just today the dresselhaus
family announced that there’s going to
be a dresselhaus prize awarded to
scientist who’s made strides in
nanotechnology milli influenced my
career in so many ways I’d say one way
is she hasn’t had an amazing work ethic
yeah um and she was always nice to
people and I think those are good
lessons so I remember I have a lot of
Lilly stories but I remember one time we
were at MIT and we were taking a cab
over 2mr s which is a big conference
just across the street at the hinds and
we got in the cab and she started
chit-chatting with the taxi driver on
the way over he had no idea who she was
and just asking about his kids and
just she was just nice to everyone sure
so I think Jeff Bezos said it was Star
Trek that got him thinking about Alexa
how well the science fiction talked
about nano like you know when Batman
puts on his suit does he ever mention
that on it you know you may be too busy
to go see ant-man but do you think
science fiction is is representing the
power of nano well so they actually hire
scientists did you know that make sure
the technobabble is accurate yeah um so
yeah you know a lot of scientists
engineers including myself like to
listen to Star Trek and laugh when they
make a mistake but I think in general
they’re they’re actually not bad yeah it
depends on which one Star Trek in
particular is pretty good I think yeah
um so yeah sorry I think science fiction
is important because it inspires people
and coming up with the direction of
where to take take the development yeah
and if you could say one thing to the
audience and the audience they’ll be
watching online you know challenge
people to go into nano you know people
could go into helping to sell ads you
know for Google and and optimize that
but I think there’s this whole exciting
field that’s really important and and
you you want to say something to rally
more people to be part of your team nano
well I I feel like it’s really important
that we continue to improve society for
people and in order to do that we have
to change the physically what’s what’s
happening and nano as I mentioned
earlier is one of the most powerful ways
to do that because you can create new
materials out of our existing materials
and really use this to improve lower the
cost of energy to improve healthcare to
to create better batteries so I think
it’s a nano technology materials in
general is a way to really make a big
impact in the world
so nanos the Greek word is that right
because I know femto is trillion oh yeah
so you know the math is there something
after nano that’s like what what’s the
word after nano keko keko so do you do
pico or that’s your your you’re not
interested in Pico and femto you stop at
nano so once you get much smaller you
get to the size of an atom and that
really gets into more like fundamental
physics that are looking at the bosons
yeah so I don’t I don’t do that yeah so
when you go to a conference and they’re
femto people and pico people do you guys
like get along like the oboe is still
there yeah yeah you know okay so I want
to thank you because you are very
technical and you could talk you know
way over a lot of average people’s heads
and I feel like you’re making this so
accessible wish you the best and I think
you’re a hero in the tech space keep up
the great work and thank you for representing
excited to interview our next
interviewer interviewee so she’s written
30 papers she has like 20 to 30 patents
she has three degrees from MIT
she was course 6 1.1 and she’s just
awesome so a friend of mine said that AI
is big and I like to call AI assistant
intelligence and people know that AI is
coming it’s going to impact our world
but the friend of mine said I think Nano
is gonna be bigger than AI how many of
you don’t even know what I mean when I
say Nano not clear hasn’t gotten the
memo
the idea of nano and and the science
implications just haven’t the memo
hasn’t been sent around the implications
for for everyday people you know just
don’t know and here sitting next to me
is one of the leaders in the Nano space
so we’re gonna explore but we’re gonna
you know go go go small can you
introduce yourself and just say a little
bit about yourself and she’s a CEO and
she raised ten million dollars for a
prior company but this one she’s
bootstrapping and it’s gonna it’s saving
lives but yes you’re I’m Marci black I’m
the CEO and co-founder of advanced
silicon group and a Vance Lincoln group
is commercializing silicon nanowires
which are very thin but long single
crystalline material of silicon silicon
switch used in all electronic well most
electronics so we’re using these silicon
you know airs for many applications but
the two main applications that we’re
focused on are for photovoltaics or
solar cells how many of you have solar
panels on your roof
how many of you don’t that’ll be more
interesting I mean you don’t oh yeah I’m
just the pointed there’s only a three no
but your technology has gone mainstream
to make it more practical um so let me
get back to that but the other
technology that were commercializing is
biosensors using the Nano wares and I
think we’re talking about that yeah a
couple questions but um um so in
photovoltaics the technology is known as
black silicon not named after me but
because this silicon is very black and
it actually now about 90% of the multi
crystalline silicon technology being
made uses black silicon so the zipper
took seven years to be commercialized
velcro took about the same amount if
you’re wearing a iPhone watch that has
an Olo OLED in it that took about 20
years to commercialize where are we in
making things in you know the research
you’re an engineer the science that
you’ve done in nano where are we in
terms of making it you know can can
impact our lives you know people know
the generation was brought up when the
light bulb
you know came around you know we have
these mobile smartphones we we know that
the world kind of changed when those
technologies went mainstream as the
expert as a leader so and who’s running
a company bet in the farm on it but
where are we and and and you know how
soon this getting some traction and
maybe we’re already there yeah so I’ve
been working in nano for over 20 years
and when I first started in you know it
was really focused on understanding the
new material properties and nano is
really exciting because when were as
material scientists when we’re designing
a material for an application we’re
limited to only the elements and the
molecules you know the elements on the
periodic table and those combinations so
nanomaterials is really exciting because
it enables you to alter those material
properties and optimize them for for
vacations so it opens up a whole new
toolbox so about 20 years ago when I was
starting in this field it was really
focused on understanding how you can
change the properties of knit using nano
materials and nano engineering um now
it’s really changed and the focus is
still on the science but there’s a lot
of focus on how to use these
technologies so maybe what one thing
people don’t know is that the Nano
market right now is well actually my
numbers are old they’re 2012 so they’re
bigger now 700 million are billion yeah
that’s okay 700 billion dollars yeah
that’s a big so the 700 billion so you
know what actually tell us when you say
nano so you have a sum here like how
many you know nano units are you using
when you’re how much can a you know the
the head of a hair hold so roughly about
a million nano wires can fit in the head
of a hair okay and and so so you
mentioned that it has signed it you know
can you yeah
something to do with solar what about
bio as we think about you know
healthcare costs are going up and up and
up
you know his bio is the bio space what
can you do with nano you know lat is it
a lab-on-a-chip is it did you know
Fantastic Voyage in the 1960s putting
things and inside your body I know
actually the in 1992 notice but at
Dartmouth and NASA they created a camera
that could see that ended up being the
camera in our iPhones because they
wanted to create something that could go
into outer space or in the body but it
didn’t really work out it’s done much
better and it’s like the machine
learning and computer vision but where
are we in terms of that for for bio so
there’s a lot of nanotech and related
and there’s so there’s some of the
applications not necessarily that what
what I’m working on but I know people
are using nanomaterials to introduce it
into the body and then they’re able to
deliver drugs more specifically to the
area that needs the drugs so if someone
has a tumor you can locally release the
drugs right near the tumor instead of
doing invasive surgery where you have to
recuperate and you may get sicker
because of that you can use nano to send
something within the body yeah some some
people are doing that um other people
are using it to help surgeons so they
can put florescent elements that bind to
where the tumors are so that you can see
more clearly where where the surgeon
needs to operate what we’re doing is
Diagnostics so it’s for a blood test you
can it’s more sensitive because of the
higher surface area of the nanomaterials
so that’s a really interesting point
that that may get missed can you go into
that why is when you go nano why is
there a ratio or surface area
opportunity there to do things that are
extraordinary that you just can’t do
with things you can hold hold in your
hand yeah so when when you go Nano the
volume decreases but the surface area
increases so you’re a lot more sensitive
to the environment around the nano
material so the material properties
depend a lot on what’s happening around
it and so that makes it very well
aligned to things like sensors so you
can have higher sensitivity because of
that so going to detail about what
you’re doing you built the team and
you’ve bootstrap this venture what are
you what are you trying to do you said
it has to do with diagnostic and walk us
through what do you hope to do with nano
technology so on the biosensing side
we’re focused on developing a bio sensor
and one application for this is for
monitoring the treatment of lung cancer
so when someone is diagnosed with lung
cancer it’s obviously not very good but
if they have a particular mutation for
which there’s a targeted treatment for
the prognosis is actually pretty pretty
encouraging for them so the patient can
undergo the targeted treatment wish
hacks that cancer cells and not not the
the healthy cells the problem comes when
during that treatment they cancer
mutates and the treatment is no longer
that the cancer is no longer responsive
to the treatment and the doctors don’t
usually know that that mutation has
occurred until after the the whole
treatment period when the patient’s
health continues to deteriorate so what
we are developing as a way to offer the
doctors a way to measure throughout the
treatment period whether that treatment
is working and if not dynamically alter
it yep so the fact that we can’t see
nano with our eye you know does that
make it hard for people to comprehend it
and what are you what are some of the
predictions of the future of nano that
that you know some of the people in the
room may may be excited to share that
they may not know so I think you’re
right it is hard I’m guessing that most
people didn’t realize that nanos already
being commercialized and it’s currently
used in like in clothing to create water
repellent clothes it’s used in a lot
most of your sunscreen has nanoparticles
it’s used in solar cells so it is all
over I think people don’t realize that
so going forward what I would like to
see is nano improving treatment making
lowering the cost of treatment for
diseases and improving people’s health
and also lowering the cost of renewable
energy yep I know you know a lot of
money spent on putting our data in the
cloud and you know it’s a you know it’s
a fraction of the world economy but as
we put more and more stuff in the cloud
it’s gonna be more expensive does nano
could nano help on energy and help on
distributing information so there’s less
latency you know with augmented reality
which is like a 200 billion dollar
market I think in the next five to ten
years you seen a know having
implications for these other tangential
orthogonal spaces yeah I mean
just thinking about it for two seconds I
could see nanomaterials helping create
superconductors for example to decrease
the transmission loss and the latency
people are also looking at using very
clever ways of using nano materials for
non-volatile memory so – so that you
don’t you can have a smaller space and
use less power to store the same amount
of memory ya know people say that the
batteries holding us back in in terms of
a lot of digital devices and I think
Nano is gonna be a player there so
you’re a hero to many but we had a hero
can we throw milli up we have two
pictures of milli can you say something
about how milli inspired you and what
her legacy is she’s like the the
godmother of nano a little bitter she is
the queen of carbon so Millie
dresselhaus I was fortunate enough to be
one of her advisees for my PhD thesis
and so Millie has made amazing strides
in in nano but in particular in carbon
nanotubes and thermal electrics and what
I asked John to mention that to me today
because just today the dresselhaus
family announced that there’s going to
be a dresselhaus prize awarded to
scientist who’s made strides in
nanotechnology milli influenced my
career in so many ways I’d say one way
is she hasn’t had an amazing work ethic
yeah um and she was always nice to
people and I think those are good
lessons so I remember I have a lot of
Lilly stories but I remember one time we
were at MIT and we were taking a cab
over 2mr s which is a big conference
just across the street at the hinds and
we got in the cab and she started
chit-chatting with the taxi driver on
the way over he had no idea who she was
and just asking about his kids and
just she was just nice to everyone sure
so I think Jeff Bezos said it was Star
Trek that got him thinking about Alexa
how well the science fiction talked
about nano like you know when Batman
puts on his suit does he ever mention
that on it you know you may be too busy
to go see ant-man but do you think
science fiction is is representing the
power of nano well so they actually hire
scientists did you know that make sure
the technobabble is accurate yeah um so
yeah you know a lot of scientists
engineers including myself like to
listen to Star Trek and laugh when they
make a mistake but I think in general
they’re they’re actually not bad yeah it
depends on which one Star Trek in
particular is pretty good I think yeah
um so yeah sorry I think science fiction
is important because it inspires people
and coming up with the direction of
where to take take the development yeah
and if you could say one thing to the
audience and the audience they’ll be
watching online you know challenge
people to go into nano you know people
could go into helping to sell ads you
know for Google and and optimize that
but I think there’s this whole exciting
field that’s really important and and
you you want to say something to rally
more people to be part of your team nano
well I I feel like it’s really important
that we continue to improve society for
people and in order to do that we have
to change the physically what’s what’s
happening and nano as I mentioned
earlier is one of the most powerful ways
to do that because you can create new
materials out of our existing materials
and really use this to improve lower the
cost of energy to improve healthcare to
to create better batteries so I think
it’s a nano technology materials in
general is a way to really make a big
impact in the world
so nanos the Greek word is that right
because I know femto is trillion oh yeah
so you know the math is there something
after nano that’s like what what’s the
word after nano keko keko so do you do
pico or that’s your your you’re not
interested in Pico and femto you stop at
nano so once you get much smaller you
get to the size of an atom and that
really gets into more like fundamental
physics that are looking at the bosons
yeah so I don’t I don’t do that yeah so
when you go to a conference and they’re
femto people and pico people do you guys
like get along like the oboe is still
there yeah yeah you know okay so I want
to thank you because you are very
technical and you could talk you know
way over a lot of average people’s heads
and I feel like you’re making this so
accessible wish you the best and I think
you’re a hero in the tech space keep up
the great work and thank you for representing
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