Technology stocks are in the doldrums this summer after losses in the spring, and nanotechnology is no exception to the pattern. But within the basket of stocks that makes up the Lux Research index, individual company performance has been mixed.

One undoubted success has been NVE, a Minnesota-based spintronics company, whose stock soared from $14 to almost $22 in July on unconfirmed reports that its technology may be successfully incorporated in non-volatile memory chips made by Freescale Semiconductor.

Nucryst Pharmaceuticals, the Massachusetts-based company whose silver nanocrystals are now popular as wound treatments, was also on the up in July after declaring strong sales growth in the second quarter. And according to Peter Hebert, president of the New York consultancy that runs the Lux index, investors are optimistic that the nanocrystals will eventually prove useful as drug treatments for infections and inflammation.

Less stellar performances were delivered by Cambridge Display Technology, the UK light-emitting diode (LED) display maker, whose shares sank from $8 to $5 in July in anticipation of weaker-than-expected sales in the third quarter. Similar concerns dragged down Oregon-based FEI, which makes scanning electron microscopes.

Hebert says an emerging feature of the nascent sector is the prevalence and importance of litigation over its intellectual property. Elan's July decision to sue Abraxis Bioscience over its use of a nanoparticle formulation technique is, he says, “a sign of things to come”.