Dr. David S. Lashmore

The NewScientist article Nanotube textile could make super-light armor said

A lightweight material made from carbon nanotubes that is stronger than steel, and conducts almost as well as aluminium, has been unveiled by a start-up company in the US. The material could lead to lighter bulletproof clothing, wiring for aircraft and more efficient power-transmission lines, the company claims.
 
David Lashmore, the company’s cofounder and chief technical officer, says the textile is seven times stronger than steel of the same weight. But determining how properties such as strength and conductance will change when the properties of the nanotubes used are altered is a complex task.
 
Nonetheless, various organizations are eager to test the company’s product. The US Army’s Natick Soldier Center in Massachusetts, US, which part-funds Nanocomp, hopes to use the textile to reduce the weight of bulletproof armor and make it better at resisting heat.

David S. Lashmore, Ph.D. is a founder of Nanocomp Technologies who, together with Joe Brown, invented the process to produce single wall carbon nanotube textiles and high strength carbon nanotube yarns now in production at Nanocomp. The textiles, made only of carbon nanotubes have breaking strength much higher than steel on a per weight basis with the yarns being even stronger. The textiles have recently been awarded the New Hampshire product of the year for 2006 and in addition were awarded a NASA TOP 50 Award.
 
These materials offer a new building block for engineering designers as they not only have extraordinary mechanical properties but their high heat conduction, excellent high frequency electrical conductivity, unusual thermoelectric behavior, chemical inertness and high specific surface area opens up new opportunities for high performance products and significant weight reduction.
 
His work in synthesis of artificial super lattices is heavily cited and his development of a new kind of soft magnetic material was recognized as the lowest energy loss material of its type. He successfully founded two other businesses in micromechanical properties testing, powder metallurgy dealing with soft magnetic materials, thermal management and high strength steels.
 
David presently is working to further increase the strength of the carbon nanotube based materials and to explore their extraordinary properties for energy generation, heat transport, and for use in batteries.
 
He has over 34 issued patents and over 70 Archival publications and was awarded the Electrochemical Society Research Award, and AESF Research Award, the Blum Award. His patents include Method for making parts from particulate ferrous material, Pulsed pressurized powder feed system and method for uniform particulate material delivery, Process for electrodepositing metal and metal alloys on tungsten, molybdenum and other difficult to plate metals, Process for forming alloys in situ in absence of liquid-phase sintering, Electrodeposition of chromium from a trivalent electrolyte, and Automated device for determining and evaluating the mechanical properties of materials.
 
David coauthored Cracks and dislocations in face-centered cubic metallic multilayers, Electrodeposited Cobalt-Tungsten as a Diffusion Barrier Between Graphite Fibers and Nickel, and Laboratory Construction of Multilayer Dielectric Mirrors for He-Ne Laser Applications. He studied Materials Science at the University of Virginia where he earned his Ph.D. working with Bill Jesser as Thesis advisor.