UB Spin-Off Company Gets $100,000 Grant

BUFFALO, N.Y. -- AMBP Tech Corp., a University at Buffalo spin-off company, will develop a process to generate bulk quantities of metallo-carbohederenes (met-cars) compounds using its Laser Assisted Molecular Beam Deposition equipment, under a $100,000 Small Business Innovative Research Phase I grant administered through the National Science Foundation.

Met-cars are a new class of compounds discovered only a decade ago. These compounds could play an important role in catalytic synthesis of new compounds, and potentially evolve into a new area of chemistry.

"Met-cars are very unstable in nature," said James Garvey, Ph.D., AMBP Tech founder and UB professor of chemistry. "People believe they are so reactive that they chemically change in the presence of air or water." This reactivity prevents researchers from isolating and further studying them.

"To date, no one has been able to produce stable, bulk quantities of this material, " noted Garvey.

According to Garvey, AMBP will attempt to stabilize these molecules using its LAMBD. As met-cars are being formed in gaseous form, added Garvey, a sulfide coating would be applied blocking any further reactions.

AMBP recently was awarded a $1.1 grant from the U.S. Department of Defense Missile Defense Agency to develop further and commercialize its advanced molecular beam deposition equipment for use in the microelectronics, optoelectronics and coatings industries. AMBP Tech Corp. is located in the UB Technology Incubator in Amherst.