Presentations by Luna Innovations


Luna presents papers and posters at technical conferences and tradeshows each year. Below are brief explanations of those presentations. Contact us for more information about our emerging technologies and solutions.


Presentations Archives   2008 | 2007 | 2006 | 2005


  • Endohedral Metallofullerenes as Improved Acceptor Materials for Organic Solar Cells
    Organic solar cells are a promising technology that will allow a low-cost roll-to-roll manufacturing process on flexible, light-weight substrates. To improve the efficiency of organic solar cells beyond the current state-of-the-art (~5%), novel donor and acceptor materials need to be developed that have better matching molecular orbitals and reduce energy losses during charge transfer. In this paper, Luna's carbon nanomaterial, an endohedral metallofullerene known as TRIMETASPHERE®, was presented as a novel acceptor material that may be the solution to improving efficiencies.
    Paper presented at the AVS 55th International Symposium & Exhibition, October 2008

  • Measurements of Shielding Effectiveness in Polymer Coating and Composite Systems
    Conventional polymer coating and thermosetting composite formulas are known to be highly insulating or resistive in nature. In many aspects this is a positive feature because galvanic corrosion and risk of electrocution can be reduced. A dilemma arises however when the coating or composite system is meant to replace a metal part in many military and commercial applications, especially for shielding electronics. Because of metal's conductivity, parts made from metal are capable of grounding, of electrostatic discharge (ESD), and of electromagnetic interference (EMI) shielding. Consequently, many composites and coatings are modified with conductive fillers and reinforcements in order to improve conductivity. Since metals have been used almost exclusively until recently, significant data exists which allows for easy prediction of shielding effectiveness (SE) through DC and waveguide measurements. These screening methods are not as effective though for anisotropic systems such as conductive paint coated glass reinforced polymer (GRP) panels and composites utilizing embedded carbon or metal fibers. This is due in part to the fact the metal is homogeneous throughout and the methods were designed with this fact in mind. Carbonaceous fiber and nanomaterial containing composite coupons and coatings are compared with control panels with respect to surface resistivity, faying resistance, and EMI shielding potential in order to determine the ability of the screening methods to predict actual radiated field measurement values.
    Paper presented at the SAMPE Fall Technical Conference September 2008

  • Hydrochalarones: A Novel Endohedral Metallofullerene Platform for Development of Targeted MRI Contrast Agents
    Poster presented. Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) is widely available, highly translatable, and can provide excellent image contrast, especially in soft tissue. However, recent concerns over the role of current Gd-based contrast agents in the development of Nephrogenic Systemic Fibrosis in patients with impaired renal function highlight the need for safer imaging agents with enhanced imaging capabilities. By concentrating agent to a particular tissue, targeted contrast agents offer the potential for reducing the required systemic dose.
    Paper presented at the World Molecular Imaging Congress, September 2008

  • Dynamically Reconfigurable Radios from a High-Level Specification
    Paper presented on the dynamic reconfigurability of field programmable gate arrays offers great benefits to software defined radio applications. Leveraging these benefits is difficult, owing to a lack of tool support and the detailed architectural knowledge required. To fully exploit the potential of dynamic hardware, a high-level development environment has been created. This development environment has been validated by implementing areconfigurable AM radio on a software defined radio platform.
    Paper presented at the National Aerospace and Electronics Conference, July 2008

  • How Threats Drive the Development of Secure Reconfigurable Devices
    SRAM-based FPGAs are becoming an attractive target technology for the deployment of secure and cryptographic operations. Because of this, much work has been done in exposing the security vulnerabilities of reconfigurable computing devices. Direct probing, side channel, fault injection, and replay attacks are among the many that can be variously applied to steal secret configurations, keys, data, and access. This presentation offered review of the threats faced by FPGAs and propose and analyze security solutions implementable by both FPGA application designers and FPGA vendors.
    Paper presented at Engineering of Reconfigurable Systems and Algorithms, July 2008

  • Nano-reinforced Composites with Tailored Electromagnetic and Mechanical Functionality
    Carbon nanomaterials offer tremendous potential to improve the mechanical, thermal, and electrical properties of fibrous composite materials. As an example, vapor grown carbon fibers (VGCFs) may be integrated into thermoset polymers to tailor the electromagnetic response in terms of electrical conductivity and shielding effectiveness of the host composite. Additional functionality, such as increased fracture toughness, may also be achieved. Luna Innovations has characterized the effect of integrating 1-3wt% VGCF within glass fiber reinforced vinyl ester resin composites. Increased shielding effectiveness and surface resistivity is achieved, in addition to a 60% increase in fracture toughness over the neat resin properties. Results of these tests and the associated composite processing methodology are presented in this paper.
    Paper presented at SAMPE 2008 - Material and Process Innovations: Changing our World, May 2008

  • Fiber Optics-based Ion Discriminator
    Protons emitted during solar particle events (SPE), as well as protons and heavier ions present in the galactic cosmic rays (GCR), present risks to the health of crew members in low Earth orbit and beyond. The greatest threat to astronauts en route to Mars is GCR radiation. No real-time radiation sensing technology suitable for planned space exploration missions exists at present. Current instrumentation is either too large or too heavy for space applications, or insufficiently stable in a radiation environment. A radiation detector capable of discriminating between different species of high energy ions is of great demand by aerospace and high energy physics communities. Luna Innovations proposes the optical fiber-based real-time ion detector and discriminator, which can have long lifetime in a radiation environment, can be compact and low production cost.
    Paper presented at Smart Structures and Materials & Nondestructive Evaluation and Health Monitoring, March 2008

  • Corrosivity Monitoring for Pipelines
    Traditional corrosion monitoring sensors are split between those best suited for monitoring accumulated corrosion and those for assessing real-time corrosion rates. Luna Innovations is developing a sensing system that shares the strengths of both accumulated corrosion and corrosion rate sensors in a single package. Cumulative corrosion assessment, as well as rapid corrosion rate measurement capabilities have been demonstrated using Luna's novel sensing technique.
    Poster presentation at National Association of Corrosion Engineers (NACE) CORROSION 2008, March 2008

  • Endohedral Fullerenes in Organic Thin Film Photovoltaic
    Cost factors in inorganic solar cells have opened up a new path to less expensive manufacturing techniques using bulk heterojunction polymer/fullerene based solar cells. Using empty cage fullerene derivatives as the acceptor material, state-of-the-art organic photovoltaics currently display approximately 5% overall conversion effciency. One of the main factors limiting the efficiency in organic solar cells is the low open circuit voltage. The open circuit voltage is governed by the molecular orbitals of the donor and acceptor material; therefore better matching of the orbitals will lead to improved voltages. Luna is working with a novel acceptor material based on its exclusive TRIMETASPHERE carbon nanomaterials (TMS). TMS are endohedral metallofullerenes that consist of a trimetal nitride cluster enclosed in a C80 cage. First-generation TMS derivatives have been synthesized; electrochemical and photophysical studies show behavior consistent with C60 but with improved molecular orbitals.
    Poster presentation at The American Physical Society Meeting, March 2008