Izentis LLC was founded in July of 2013 by Dr. Alexander Bruccoleri with two lines of business, nanotechnology and aerospace.
The aerospace work began as general consulting to the NASA Millimeter-wave Thermal Launch System (MTLS) project. This project was to develop beamed energy propulsion, a technology that uses external energy to power rockets as opposed to chemical energy. As the project evolved Izentis LLC was contracted to design, build and fly the test vehicles for side-engaged rockets. This work culminated in the Spring of 2014 with the successful test flight of a rocket where the propellant was heated via external millimeter waves.
The nanofabrication work began as consulting for the MIT Spacenanotechnology Lab to fabricate critical- angle transmission (CAT) gratings. These are ultra-high aspect ratio diffraction gratings that combine the efficiency of reflection gratings with the relaxed alignment tolerances of transmission gratings. They are very challenging to fabricate due to their small period (200 nm) and aspect ratio (>100). Their primary application is geometric dispersion of soft x-rays for space telescopes. Throughout 2014 Izentis continued developing fabrication techniques on the CAT grating, and successfully fabricated a freestanding CAT grating with polished sidewalls. These gratings have since been x-ray tested at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and achieved world record efficiency in the soft x-ray band.
Throughout 2014 Izentis LLC has expanded nanofabrication work into developing nanoscale blazed-reflection gratings and amplitude-transmission gratings. Custom gratings are now available for sale. Izentis has considerable expertise and experience in micro and nanofabrication ,and offers custom fabrication as a service. Izentis has also been developing endpoint detection tools for reactive-ion etch tools, which are also available on a custom basis. The company also has expertise in custom vacuum-bonding tools for bonding small (~cm-scale) chips to full 100 mm or bigger carrier wafers. These tools are now available in 2015. The company continues to offer technical and strategy consulting services as well.