Strategic Elements secures significant Australian Research Council funding for unique printable memory technology project

Strategic Elements Ltd’s (ASX:SOR) collaborative project to develop Printable Memory technology with the University of New South Wales (UNSW) and CSIRO has won significant funding from the Australian Research Council Linkage program. Funds will be used to enhance the Nanocube printable memory technology owned by its subsidiary Australian Advanced Materials (AAM). The project to produce metal oxide-based nanomaterials for printable, flexible and cost-effective memory devices, will be led by UNSW associate professor Dewei Chu, the co-inventor of the Nanocube Memory Ink. AAM licensed the underlying Nanocube Ink technology from UNSW. “Win-win relationship” Strategic Elements managing director Charles Murphy said: “To have successfully pulled together a collaborative project in excess of $1,000,000 focused on developing our Nanocube Memory Ink technology is a great win for the company in the current environment. “UNSW, in particular, has been a strong partner for us and our win-win relationship is a great example of industry and research working together to further Australian technology commercialisation.” UNSW’s Chu added: “We have strong collaboration with Australian Advanced Materials and are extremely pleased to see the Commonwealth Government is investing in printable memory technology which will have great potential in next-generation wearable electronics.” Resources and advanced facilities The total budget for the collaborative project is about $1.069 million over up to three years. The Australian Research Council Linkage funding provides $320,000 in cash while AAM is providing $160,000 in cash and $150,000 in-kind support and services; and CSIRO is providing around $25,000 in-kind support and services. UNSW is providing $414,000 in-kind support and services. The project will be strongly supported by the university, with significant contributions across the University from The School of Materials Science and Engineering, Faculty of Science, and Central Strategy Funds. UNSW has set up a materials chemistry laboratory at the School of Materials Science and Engineering, which is equipped with state-of-the-art facilities for energy and information storage materials fabrication, printing and electrochemical properties characterisation. The university has a large electronic device laboratory which is capable of characterizing various electronic devices. The team will have access to all of the necessary facilities,  including analytical and EM facilities at the UNSW Analytical Centre, fabrication facilities at the Australian National Fabrication Facility node at UNSW and via proposals to major facilities such as CSIRO, the Australian Synchrotron and ANSTO. The team also has access to state-of-the-art Australian Supercomputer facilities, including the National Computational Infrastructure (Raijin) and Pawsey Supercomputer Centre (Magnus) through the National Computational Merit Allocation Scheme and Pawsey Energy and Resources Merit Allocation Scheme. Printable Memory technology The project aims to develop next-generation printable memory devices with low cost and excellent stability. The expected outcomes will be new electronic materials for a wide range of use in flexible electronics and significant advances in energy-efficient data storage devices. IP and commercialisation rights remain with AAM. The Nanocube Memory Ink is a liquid transparent ink containing billions of tiny nanometer-scale particles. The data storage technology is physically printed onto surfaces (glass, plastics) introducing electronic memory to surfaces where current silicon chip technology cannot go. The exploding increase in digital communications from 5G, Big Data and Internet of Things (IoT) has generated an urgent need for new memory materials and devices with low power consumption, non-volatile storage capabilities and mechanical flexibility. Venture builder Strategic Elements is registered as a Pooled Development Fund with a mandate to back Australian innovation. It operates as a ‘venture builder’, generating high risk-high reward ventures and projects from combining teams of leading scientists or innovators in the technology or resources sectors. Most investors in the company pay no tax on capital gains from selling their shares in the company as it operates under a Federal Government program setup to encourage investment into innovation.