Perfecting superconductors to change the world

ADAM STANDLEY, the 2007 Student Innovator, has contributed to the creation of a less expensive and more conducive substrate material. /
ADAM STANDLEY, the 2007 Student Innovator, has contributed to the creation of a less expensive and more conducive substrate material. /

In true entrepreneurial fashion, Adam Standley spends sleepless nights thinking about the research he is conducting at Brown University.

A candidate for an M.S. in entrepreneurship and innovation, with an aerospace engineering degree already under his belt, Standley seizes every opportunity to tell friends, acquaintances or colleagues about the work for which he has earned this year’s Student Innovator award.

Standley has teamed up with Eric Chason, a professor of engineering, and Ph.D. candidate Jae Wook Shin to find a more efficient and less costly way of saving energy. The trio’s focus is on solar cells and high-temperature semiconductors.

The project goes back to 2005, when as a junior at Brown, Standley saw the innovator and entrepreneur in himself come out, and he started learning about energy issues.

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“I liked the allure and romanticized the field with hopes of changing the world with some new idea or invention,” he explained. “I just didn’t know what it would be.”

That, coupled with talk of superconductivity leading the next industrial revolution, sparked enough interest in Standley to conduct research in the subject with Chason. Since then it has been pure chemistry.

“I really feel like I have had a lot of freedom from the start to pursue this project,” Standley said.

Innovation has become a way for Standley to put his ideas into action. He never feels restricted in any way and can express his ideas, build products and just experiment, he said.

Born in Bangor, Maine, but having spent most of his life in Hampden, Maine, Standley enjoyed the laid-back feeling the state has to offer. There was no pressure. There was no hustle and bustle.

A product of the public school system, Standley says he is proud of what his school did for him and his peers. The top 10 percent of the class were accepted at Ivy League schools, he said.

“It is what you make of it,” he said. “I was really athletic, and my team skills came from that.”

He is now happy to be at a university that embraces innovation and in a state which he believes honors people’s efforts to innovate.

Since 2005, the team has developed a technique dubbed electro-epitaxy. This process allows for the development of metal crystals at one-50th the cost of techniques used today, according to Standley. And his research has resulted in the development of materials that are also more efficient in several applications.

The student and his team are currently in talks with superconductor manufacturers.

SC Power Systems Inc., of San Mateo, Calif., has expressed interest in the high-temperature superconductor technology and is currently testing the trio’s material, which is expected to provide the company with a two- to threefold increase in capacity.

Standley’s technology can pass through 300 to 450 times more current than a copper wire the same size, allowing motors and generators to be smaller and more efficient. Possible applications for the superconductors include trains, motors for cargo, naval and cruise ships, and fault current limiters.

Using the technology, consumers could power boats with motors half the size and weight.

Companies such as American Superconductor Corp. are currently building these electric motors for efficient propulsion for the U.S. Navy, but Standley’s technology would make the price of manufacturing those motors much lower.

“Right now it is expensive to make these motors,” he said. “It has thousands of dollars of wire in it.”

“Using our material they can use half the wires, make the motor more efficient, therefore dropping the cost of manufacturing by half,” Standley added.

The global market for superconductivity is estimated at $5 billion and it is expected to be $38 billion by 2020, according to a 2006 report by the CONsortium of European Companies Determined to Use Superconductivity.

The material can provide similar cost savings to the makers of solar cells and micro-electromechanical systems used in car airbag sensors.

Standley acknowledges that business is not his forte, at least not yet. He has, however, been busy learning about the nuances of business through his entrepreneurship and business courses and some of his undergraduate classes.

“It is definitely an engaging process for me,” he said. “I, by no means, am the businessman, but a lot of [learning about business] is doing it and figuring it out along the way.”

Standley got an early start by forming the relationship with SC Power Systems Inc., engaging in discussions about raising seed capital, and building a prototype machine to manufacture the product.

Standley also has tapped local resources. He connected with the R.I. Economic Development Corporation, for example, and “they gave me great insight and told me what opportunities were available,” he said.

Although he sees the potential, Standley knows starting a business is no piece of cake.

“We need to start small and focus on a strategy that is realistic,” he said.

To spawn interest in their technology, the team sells materials to researchers in hopes that it will drive the potential growth of the company. “We want to do this to bring in revenue and use it to scale the company into other markets,” he said.

The innovator also has tapped the Slater Technology Fund as a resource and potential source of capital.

The ultimate goal for Standley and his partners is to form a manufacturing company in Rhode Island with a team of employees who will manufacture the solar cells and HTS wires.

“There are a lot of people out there who want to try to help you,” he said, “and there is a great culture not only at Brown, but within Rhode Island as well.” •

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