Business & Tech
Business Spotlight: Advanced Diamond Technologies
Find out what natural material company ADT is using to strengthen its portfolio of products.
This week, we caught up with Jill Paukstis, marketing communication manager for Advanced Diamond Technologies, Inc., to learn more about how the company is using the natural stone to strengthen a number of products.
Romeoville Patch: When did you begin?
Jill Paukstis: The State of Illinois Technology Enterprise Center, the Department of Energy Office of Science, the University of Chicago and Argonne National Laboratory were instrumental in creating ADT in December of 2003.
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Patch: What types of services/programs do you offer?
Paukstis: ADT is a world leader in developing and applying thin diamond films for industrial, electronic, mechanical and medical applications. Founding scientists Dr. John Carlisle and Dr. Orlando Auciello commercialized UNCD (ultrananocrystalline diamond) at Argonne. ADT’s proprietary technology, UNCD, captures the properties of natural diamond in a nanocrystalline thin-film form. Known for its ability to seamlessly integrate with our other materials, UNCD is mirror-smooth. Since it is vapor deposited, UNCD can be used to bring the properties of diamond to existing products while enabling entirely new classes of high performance devices.
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Patch: Please explain in layman’s terms how the technology works? How is it being used today?
Paukstis: The diamond is nature’s strongest material. By applying it in a thin-film form to a variety of products, it allows for better performance on a number of levels. UNCD, which is a form of polycrystalline diamond, captures many of the best properties of natural diamond in a scalable thin film technology that enables diamond to be integrated into a wide range of products to tackle some of the world’s most challenging issues from water purification to anti-coagulation devices to biomedical sensors. The benefits of diamond include low friction, electrical insulation or conductivity, extreme wear resistance, and extreme smoothness.
Patch: Why was Romeoville selected as the location for the business?
Paukstis: As a small business start-up, Romeoville was an efficient and economic choice close to our scientific root, Argonne National Laboratory.
