NSF awards $18 million to transform laboratory science into industrial applications
The National Science Foundation has awarded UCLA a grant worth nearly $18 million over five years to establish a new Nanoscale Science and Engineering Center. The new center will combine fundamental science and technology in nano-manufacturing that will transform laboratory science into industrial applications in nano-electronics and biomedicine. UCLA is one of only two universities — and the only one in California — chosen this year to lead such a center. UCLA is joined by five other partner institutions: University of California, Berkeley; Stanford University; University of California, San Diego; University of North Carolina at Charlotte; and HP labs. The new Center for Scalable and Integrated Nano-Manufacturing (SINAM) will:

-Develop cost-effective methods of nano-lithography that will enable nano-manufacturing at a resolution as high as one nanometer.

-Devise commercial nano-manufacturing tool designs and establish an engineering test-bed for prototype development and testing.

-Establish an industrial consortium to build strategic partnerships with leading companies, as well as government laboratories.

-Address critical high-tech work force needs through an integrated research and education program that will have a profound impact on telecommunication, computing, biotechnology, health care and national security. According to SINAM Director Xiang Zhang, the promise that nanotechnology holds for industries ranging from semiconductors to health care to national defense has largely been held back by the lack of manufacturing platforms that allow complex nano-engineered products and systems to be adopted on a mass scale. “A whole host of nano-scale mechanical devices that are being developed in labs across the country have not been able to reach their maximum potential because we lack the materials and the tools to manufacture them in a cost-effective way,� said Zhang, a professor of mechanical and aerospace engineering in the UCLA Henry Samueli School of Engineering and Applied Science and member of the California NanoSystems Institute (CNSI). “We want to bridge the gap between scientific research and economically feasible manufacturing solutions.� The grant provides roughly $2.8 million this year, and over five years SINAM will receive $17.7 million. The grant could be extended another five years, raising total funding to an estimated $40 million. “Technology will soon master the nano-world, just as we master the micro-world today,� said Eli Yablonovitch, co-director of SINAM and an electrical engineering professor at UCLA. “There will be new microscopes, new nano-fabrication technologies, and new applications in information technology and medicine. Our center will help create these new nano-tools, and to build them into systems that will enable cost-effective nano-manufacturing.� In addition to Zhang and Yablonovitch, the center has named Cheng Sun to serve as the acting chief operating officer. The search for an administrative team has begun. In the last two years, UCLA’s Henry Samueli School of Engineering and Applied Science has won five competitive research centers from the federal government and private industry that will bring more than $100 million dollars to Southern California to spur research and development on emerging technologies. “The awarding of these centers represents a remarkable concentration of new technology and enterprise on the UCLA campus,� said Vijay Dhir, dean of UCLA’s School of Engineering. “Collectively they will have a profound impact on technology and business in Southern California.� For CNSI Director Fraser Stoddart, the National Science Foundation award of this new center is a vindication of the institute’s mission to establish a world-renowned center for nanosystems research and development. “CNSI, whose state-of-the-art facilities have entered the construction phase at UCLA, will enhance the ability of SINAM researchers to advance their cross-disciplinary research agendas,� Stoddart said. SINAM aims to develop cost-efficient and reliable methods of lithography, the photography-like technique that uses light to transfer images onto a substrate during the manufacture of small-scale devices. Computer chip-makers, for example, use this process to manufacture microprocessors. The ability to manufacture smaller, more functional microprocessors is largely dependent on the size of light wavelengths during the lithography process — the smaller the wavelength, the smaller the chip. “Our mantra is ‘optical frequencies, but with X-ray wavelengths,’� Zhang said. “We want to introduce lithography techniques that will make the manufacture of nanodevices with dimensions smaller than 20 nanometers not only possible, but economically feasible.� Currently, the industry standard is roughly 100 nanometers. SINAM researchers propose a method called plasmonic imaging lithography, which continues to use light but at much smaller wavelengths. By shining light through a thin, metal slab to create an effect called surface plasma resonance, researchers can reduce a 600-nanometer wavelength to as little as one nanometer — the scale of x-ray wavelengths. Another major SINAM goal is to develop three-dimensional nano-manufacturing technologies. With its greater surface area, a 3-D computer chip could store more processing power than its two-dimensional cousin. “Consider how our system of highways developed,� Zhang said. “As urban centers became more crowded and populated, engineers needed to find a more efficient way of laying down highways. The solution was to erect highways on top of other highways.� In the same way, Zhang says chip-makers must begin to “build up� to take advantage of the greater surface area that such a chip design would provide. SINAM will develop a 3-D nano-manufacturing system based on a layer-by-layer plasmonic imaging lithography approach to create various materials and structures. SINAM will also pursue the development of a number of engineered products, including a 3-D nano-photonic circuit for integrating optical communication and computing, and a pathogen biosensor, as well as essential tools that would be used in the nano-manufacturing process itself. “The grand challenge is the cost of the tools required to do the lithography,� Zhang said. “One tool for optical lithography costs more than $10 million.� Almost a dozen companies have already joined SINAM’s industrial consortium, and Zhang has formed partnerships with several government laboratories. Zhang has also built an international collaborative program involving academic and industrial nanotechnology groups from Germany, Japan, the Netherlands and the United Kingdom. The National Science Foundation is an independent federal agency that supports fundamental research and education across all fields of science and engineering. Foundation funds reach all 50 states through grants to nearly 2,000 universities and institutions. Each year, the foundation receives about 30,000 competitive requests for funding, and makes about 10,000 new funding awards. The National Science Foundation also awards more than $200 million in professional and service contracts yearly.