The Center for Nanoscience Innovation for Defense (CNID) has been created to facilitate the rapid transition of research innovation in the nanosciences into applications for the defense sector. U.S. government allocations of $13.5 million are being shared equally by three University of California institutions: Santa Barbara (UCSB), Los Angeles (UCLA), and Riverside (UCR), and a second increment is anticipated that will ultimately bring total funding to more than $20 million over three years. CNID is sponsored by two federal agencies: the Defense Advanced Research Project Agency (DARPA) and Defense MicroElectronics Activity (DMEA).
UCSB Physics and Electrical and Computer Engineering (ECE) Professor David Awschalom spearheaded efforts to establish the new center whose participants, in addition to the three universities, include the National Labs (particularly Los Alamos), and 10 industrial partners (Boeing, DuPont, Hewlett Packard, Hughes Research Laboratories, Motorola, NanoSys, Northrop Grumman, Rockwell Scientific, Raytheon, and TRW).
The CNID effort at UCR is being led by Robert C. Haddon, Distinguished Professor of Chemistry and Chemical & Environmental Engineering. Haddon was brought to UCR less than two years ago to found the Center for Nanoscale Science and Engineering (CNSE) of which he is director. Because the nanotechnology effort at UCR is still in its beginning stages, the CNID funds will be used at UCR to put in place the basic infrastructure for nanotechnology research and to fund projects of relevance to the CNID mission.
"At UCR, we see CNID as part of a larger effort by CNSE that will have nanomedicine as its other thrust," said Haddon. "This is a thrust in which nanomaterials and nanodevices are brought to bear on biological processes and medical ailments."
UCSB and UCLA joined together two years ago to form the California NanoSystems Institute (CNSI). Under the terms of that initiative fostered by Gov. Gray Davis, the State of California is matching every $2 of non-State support with $1 in-State funding up to $100 million. The CNID monies qualify for the State match. Thus, the California NanoSystems Institute at Santa Barbara and Los Angeles benefits 1.5 times the federal allocation.
By joining with UCSB and UCLA in the CNID effort, UCR expects to rapidly ramp up the facilities and research in nanotechnology and thereby leverage the investment of the state in the California Nanosystems Institute.
The State money has been used principally to build two CNSI research facilities, one at Santa Barbara and one at Los Angeles. The CNID money is being used to equip the facilities with state-of-the-art high-tech instrumentation, and for graduate fellowships, that will enable the University of California campuses to compete for and to attract the best graduate students worldwide to advance nanoscience and nanotechnology research both in universities and also in industrial laboratories. Those students are intended not only to be the nanoscience university researchers of the future but also the nanotechnology talent for high-tech American businesses.
According to Awschalom, the motivation for CNID arose from discussions in federal research agencies for science and defense, which recognized a problem emerging with the diminution of basic research in the nation's major industrial laboratories, such as Bell Labs and IBM. The latter is, for instance, planning to sell its Data Storage Division once the focus for much basic science and technology research to Hitachi.
"Innovation in American industry," Awschalom pointed out, "has been intimately connected to discoveries in basic science. With the disappearance of basic science research in industrial laboratories, the U.S. government is concerned about the source of future innovation. So it was decided as an experiment to back a group of universities where faculty were experienced both in working with industry and also doing fundamental science in order to form a network with companies to keep them informed of the latest developments in science and technology. It's all about enabling America's businessescontractors for defense technologyto keep abreast of current information.
"Keeping current is not only a matter of information," said Awschalom, "but also of talent. The companies want to attract the very best science and technology students and hire them. CNID will offer unique opportunities for graduate student researchers to gain industrial research experience through collaborative projects and summer internships. In particular, we will join with the University of Alaska at Fairbanks and North Dakota State University in promoting exchange programs in nanotechnology.
"CNID will act as a conduit," said Awschalom, "through which industrial partners can recruit highly trained students in the areas of nanoscale science and engineering, and will allow students to obtain contact with 'real world' research and development in the private sector.
"This experiment extends to developing people who are doing science and technology of interest to many companies. Broadly speaking, the experiment focuses on knowledge transfer in the form of information and human expertise to U.S. companiesknowledge particularly relevant to national defense," said Awschalom.
Stu Wolf, the DARPA program manager, points out his desire "that this experiment provide a major focus for research collaborations well beyond the initial partners. The cost of establishing a first-rate research infrastructure is beyond the reach of many institutions that have excellent researchers. It is essential," he said, "that centers of excellence be established that provide scientists around the country with both world-class facilities and collaborators. I hope this new institution provides a model for the development of other centers so that the U.S. can maintain its scientific and technological leadership far into the foreseeable future."
CNID Research Focus at UCR
The CNID research program aims at understanding and thereby controlling nanometer-scale systems for advanced technology. The prefix "nano-" means "one billionth," so a nanometer is one billionth of a meter. The DNA molecule is two nanometers wide, roughly 1,000 times smaller than a blood cell or 10,000 times smaller than the diameter of a human hair.
The research at UCR is focused on the preparation of nanomaterials that will eventually be fabricated into nanodevices when the University Nanofabrication and Clean Room facilities are complete next year. The UCR effort includes the preparation and construction of devices based on multiporphyrins, carbon nanotubes and neutral radical conductors. UCR also has a project designed to study the interaction between carbon nanotubes and neurons both of these species transport charge over conducting channels that are of submicron dimensions. In recognition of the importance of homeland defense, there is also a strong component of work on sensors that are expected to have defense applications.
The five areas of CNID research that UCR will focus on are: nanoscale electronic devices, spintronic devices organic and inorganic, multiporphyrin molecular memories, neurons and nanotubes, and sensors. For more information on these areas of research, please visit:
http://www.newsroom.ucr.edu/cgi-bin/display.cgi?id=305.
[Note: Professor Awschalom can be reached at 805-893-2121 or by e-mail awsch@physics.ucsb.edu. For information about CNID efforts at UCLA, contact Professor Eli Yablonovich at 310-206-2240 or by email at eliy@ee.ucla.edu. For information about CNID efforts at UC Riverside, contact Professor Robert C. Haddon at 909-787-2044 or by e-mail robert.haddon@ucr.edu. To download a graphic depicting nanoscale in comparison to micro- and millimeter scales and a photograph of UCSB's ultrafast measurement laboratory, go to the press release and follow the links to the high resolution version; for help downloading contact Kramer@engineering.ucsb.edu.]