Publications by Luna Innovations and Others


Luna Innovations’ employees are frequently published in technical journals and trade magazines. Below are summaries and links to some of those articles. In addition, we have featured articles from outside sources that are using Luna's technologies.


  • A New Platform for the Development of Targeted, High-performance MRI Contrast Agents—Hydrochalarones™ (Endohedral Metallofullerenes)
    Report by Joel Garbow, Ph.D., Research Associate Professor of Radiology, and Joseph Ackerman, Ph.D., William Greenleaf Eliot Professor of Chemistry and Professor of Radiology, Washington University, St. Louis
    US Radiology, Volume 2 Issue 1, pages 84-86, December 2008
    Two internationally recognized radiology experts from Washington University in St. Louis have coauthored a paper on a new magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) contrast agent platform technology using Luna's proprietary molecule family known as HYDROCHALARONE™. The authors conclude that these new nanoparticles "represent a new and potentially powerful platform on which to build targeted MRI contrast agents." In the paper, they describe how Luna's new class of water-soluble endohedral metallofullerenes offer relaxivity of up to 10 times that of current gadolinium chelate -based MRI contrast agents on the market today. Additionally, they comment on the "stealth" properties of HYDROCHALRONE that offer "desirable properties for a platform on which to develop targeting species for clinical diagnosis and disease management."
    Download the article.

  • Factors Influencing the Partitioning and Toxicity of Nanotubes in the Aquatic Environment
    Co-authored by Jonas Gunter
    Journal of Environmental Toxicology and Chemistry, Vol. 27, No. 9, pp. 1932–1941, May 2008
    Carbon nanotubes (NTs) may be among the most useful engineered nanomaterials for structural applications but could be difficult to study in ecotoxicological evaluations using existing tools relative to nanomaterials with a lower aspect ratio. Whereas the hydrophobicity and van der Waals interactions of NTs may suggest aggregation and sedimentation in aquatic systems, consideration regarding how engineered surface modifications influence their environmental fate and toxicology is needed. Surface modifications (e.g., functional groups and coatings) are intended to create conditions to make NTs dispersible in aqueous suspension, as required for some applications.
    Read the complete article.

  • TUNABLE SOURCES: Telecom Laser Investments Pay Off in Near-IR Instrumentation
    By Stephen Kreger
    Laser Focus World, Oct. 3, 2008
    Before the peak of the telecom investment bubble, tunable lasers were seen as a key network component that would increase network reliability and reduce costs of spare lasers. Startups like Iolon and Agility easily attracted investments in the tens of millions of dollars at each round of funding; even corporate giants such as Intel poured money into research and development. But the telecom tunable laser boom did not materialize as planned, mostly because of rapidly declining costs and improved reliability of arrays of fixed-wavelength distributed-feedback (DFB) lasers. After years of consolidation among tunable laser manufacturers, a number of vendors still survived, in part by taking advantage of higher margins afforded by integrating their products into test equipment, such as Luna's optical-backscatter-reflectometry technology, and by tailoring their designs and lowering costs for applications outside the telecom market.
    Read the complete article.

  • Hydrochalarones: A Novel Endohedral Metallofullerene Platform for Enhancing Magnetic Resonance Imaging Contrast
    Journal of Medicinal Chemistry, June 18, 2008
    Targeted imaging requires contrast agents that remain in the vasculature for extended periods of time. A new contrast agent is described in which gadolinium is encapsulated within an extremely stable carbon sphere, thus allowing for safe extended residence. Water solubility and small particle size is achieved with novel fullerene chemistry, attaching multiple oligoethylene glycol groups through nitrogen chemistry. These new compounds can be used to visualize tissue architecture in vivo with standard MRI techniques.
    Read the article (subscription required).

  • A Non-Halogenated Flame Retardant Additive for Pultrusion
    Composites Research Journal, Spring 2008
    Luna's Frances Davis, Thomas Plaisted, Martin Rogers, Aaron Small and Lisa Sterner co-authored a technical paper titled "A Non-Halogenated Flame Retardant Additive for Pultrusion" which was published in the Spring 2008 issue of the Composites Research Journal.
    Read the article.

  • Defect Formation in Graphene Nanosheets by Acid Treatment: An X-ray Absorption Spectroscopy and Density Functional Theory Study
    Journal of Physics D: Applied Physics, February 2008
    Brian Holloway and Ron Quinlan of Luna's nanoWorks Division, co-authored (with seven others) a technical paper titled "Defect Formation in Graphene Nanosheets by Acid Treatment: An X-ray Absorption Spectroscopy and Density Functional Theory Study" for the Journal of Physics D: Applied Physics. As of April 10, 2008, the paper had been downloaded 250 times.
    Read the article at http://www.iop.org/EJ/abstract/0022-3727/41/6/062001/.

  • Fullerene Nanomaterials Inhibit the Allergic Response
    Journal of Immunology: Volume 179 / No. 1 / July 1, 2007
    Paper describes how researchers from Luna Innovations Incorporated and Virginia Commonwealth University (VCU) are the first to show that carbon nanospheres, sometimes referred to as "buckyballs," are able to block allergic response in human cell culture experiments and mice. This research was supported in part by grants from the National Institutes of Health and the Food Allergy and Anaphylaxis Network. A copy of the study is available to reporters in PDF format by email request from the American Association of Immunologists at infoji@aai.org.
    Read the article.

  • A Novel Non-Halogenated Flame Retardant for Composite Materials
    Composites Research Journal, Spring 2007
    Aaron C. Small, Martin Rogers, Lisa Sterner, Thomas Amos, and Ayesha Johnson of the Advanced Materials Group in TDD of Luna Innovations Incorporated, co-authored a technical paper titled "A Novel Non-Halogenated Flame Retardant for Composite Materials" for the ACMA Composites 2006 trade show. The paper was selected to be reprinted in the Spring 2007 issue of Composites Research Journal and examines Luna’s non-halogenated flame retardant development in thermoset composite systems, such as epoxy, vinyl ester, polyester and urethane hybrid.
    Read the article at http://www.acmanet.org/crj/Small.pdf.

  • Characterization of Polarization-Maintaining Fiber Using High-Sensitivity Optical-Frequency-Domain Reflectometry
    Journal of Lightwave Technology, November 2006
    Mark Froggatt, Dawn Gifford, Steven Kreger, Matthew Wolfe and Brian Soller of Luna Technologies, a division of Luna Innovations Incorporated, co-authored a paper titled "Characterization of Polarization-Maintaining Fiber Using High-Sensitivity Optical-Frequency-Domain Reflectometry." The paper, which was published in the November 2006 issue of the Journal of Lightwave Technology, demonstrates how the introduction of commercially available OFDR systems with submillimeter resolution [15]–[17] and the use of autocorrelations in the spectral domain provide a new and more easily implemented method of characterizing fiber birefringence. This paper is available to subscribers of the Journal of Lightwave Technology, or on a pay-per-article basis by visiting http://www.opticsinfobase.org/viewmedia.cfm?id=119675&seq=0.

  • Nonlinear Acoustic Concealed Weapons Detections
    Materials Evaluations, December 2005
    Luna authors include Anjani Achanta, Samuel Guy, Ted Lynch, Eugene Malyarenko, Mark McKenna and Joseph Heyman.
    "In this paper, we describe a concealed weapons detection concept, based on nonlinear ultrasonic beam mixing in air, which offers advantages over traditional techniques. Two ultrasonic frequency signals at high sound pressures undergo nonlinear beam mixing to generate audio range difference frequency signals which can probe through thick clothing. While the low frequency beams penetrate, the beam collimation and resolution is determined by the ultrasound."
    This article is no longer availabe at the magazine's Web site.

  • Sensing Shape: Fiber-Bragg Grating Sensor Arrays Monitor Shape at High Resolution
    OEmagazine, September 2005
    By Roger Duncan
    "Within days of the collapse of the twin towers in New York on Sept. 11, 2001, dozens of urban search and rescue robots were crawling through the rubble to search for survivors. These robots had any number of means to find the survivors: microphones to detect voices or other sounds of possible human presence within the ruins, thermal cameras to register body heat, other cameras to search for colors distinctive from the gray dust that had blanketed the debris, and so on."
    This article is no longer availabe at the magazine's Web site.

  • Ultrasonic Device for the Noninvasive Diagnosis of Compartment Syndrome
    Physiological Measurement, November 2003
    An ultrasonic device for the diagnosis of acute compartment syndrome is described and results on six human cadaveric legs are presented. The ultrasonic device uses a pulsed phase locked loop (PPLL) to measure sub-micrometer displacements of the fascia wall. This paper is available to subscribers of Physiological Measurement or on a pay-per-article basis. You can purchase the article at http://www.iop.org/EJ/abstract/0967-3334/25/1/N01.