Nanoscale Science, Engineering, and Technology Research (NSET)

Nanoscale Science Research Centers

FY 2002 Solicitations

FY 2001 Awards

Overview of the National Nanotechnology Initiative and BES Involvement

Nanoscale Science, Engineering, and Technology Research

BES Nanoscale Science Research - FY 2003 President's Budget Request

In FY 2003, fundamental research to understand the properties of materials at the nanoscale will be increased in three areas: synthesis and processing of materials at the nanoscale; condensed matter physics; and catalysis. In the area of synthesis and processing (Materials Sciences and Engineering subprogram), new activities will develop a fundamental understanding of nanoscale processes involved in deformation and fracture, synthesis of ordered arrays of nanoparticles using patterning techniques, and synthesis of nanoparticles of uniform size and shape. In the area of condensed matter physics (Materials Sciences and Engineering subprogram), new activities will focus on understanding how properties change or can be improved at the nanoscale and how macromolecules reach their equilibrium configuration and self assemble into larger structures. In the area of catalysis (Chemical Sciences, Geosciences, and Energy Biosciences subprogram), new work will focus on fundamental research to understand the role nanoscale properties of materials play in altering and controlling catalytic transformations. In FY 2003, requests for applications in these research areas will be issued to DOE laboratories and to universities. The combination in a single coordinated research program of individual investigators at universities and interdisciplinary groups at the Department’s laboratories is a proven excellent mechanism for incorporating advanced basic research, cutting-edge instrumentation, access to facilities, and the needs of energy technologies. 

In addition to the increases for research in FY 2003, construction will begin on one Nanoscale Science Research Center (NSRC), and engineering and design will continue on two others. NSRCs are user facilities for the synthesis, processing, fabrication, and analysis of materials at the nanoscale. NSRCs were conceived in FY 1999 within the context of the NSTC Interagency Working Group on Nanoscale Science, Engineering, and Technology as part of the DOE contribution to the National Nanotechnology Initiative. They involve conventional construction of a simple laboratory building, usually sited adjacent to or near an existing BES synchrotron or neutron scattering facility. Contained within NSRCs will be clean rooms; chemistry, physics, and biology laboratories for nanofabrication; and one-of-a-kind signature instruments and other instruments, e.g., nanowriters and various research-grade probe microscopies, not generally available outside of major user facilities. NSRCs will serve the Nation’s researchers broadly and, as with the existing BES facilities, access to NSRCs will be through submission of proposals that will be reviewed by mechanisms established by the facilities themselves. Planning for the NSRCs includes substantial participation by the research community through a series of open, widely advertised workshops. Workshops held to date have been heavily attended, attracting up to 300 researchers. Funds are requested for the start of construction of the NSRC located at Oak Ridge National Laboratory and for the continuation of engineering and design for the NSRC located at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and the NSRC at Sandia National Laboratories (Albuquerque) and Los Alamos National Laboratory. These NSRCs were chosen from among those proposed by a peer review process. Additional information on the NSRCs is provided in the construction project data sheet, project number 03-R-312 and in the PED data sheet, project number 02-SC-002. (RE:  BES FY 2003 Budget Request).

The research efforts described in the first paragraph above will benefit significantly from these NSRCs. For example, the NSRC at Oak Ridge National Laboratory will provide direct access to sample preparation for neutron scattering, which is ideal for magnetic structures and for soft materials and residual stress in materials; Oak Ridge also has a combination of electron beam microcharacterization instruments that are needed to characterize nanoscale particles and dislocations. The NSRC at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory will provide synthesis capabilities to explore the phenomena of macromolecular conformation and assembly and will provided ready access to the Advanced Light Source and other characterization instruments. The NSRC at Sandia/Los Alamos National Laboratories will provide sample preparation capabilities for thin films, electron transport, patterning, and magnetic layered structures. This NSRC will also have an array of characterization instruments for nanoelectronics, thin films, and magnetic structures; in the case of magnetic materials, the NSRC will provide ready access to the National High Magnetic Field Laboratory at Los Alamos. 

This research activity will also benefit by new work proposed in FY 2003 in the Advanced Scientific Computing Research (ASCR) program in the area of computational nanoscale science engineering and technology. ASCR will develop the specialized computational tools for nanoscale science.

Background Information  -  Federal Investments in Nanoscale Science

Nanotechnology is the creation and utilization of materials, devices, and systems through the control of matter on the nanometer-length scale, that is, at the level of atoms, molecules, and supramolecular structures. The essence of nanotechnology is the ability to work at these levels to generate larger structures with fundamentally new molecular organization. These "nanostructures," made with building blocks understood from first principles, are the smallest human-made objects, and they exhibit novel physical, chemical, and biological properties and phenomena. The aim of nanotechnology is to learn to exploit these properties and efficiently manufacture and employ the structures.

In August 1999, the National Science and Technology Council’s (NSTC) Interagency Working Group on Nanoscience, Engineering, and Technology (IWGN) released its first report, entitled Nanostructure Science and Technology. That document provided a basis for the Federal government to assess how to make strategic research and development (R&D) investments in this emerging field of nanotechnology through the formulation of national R&D priorities and a strategy for state, local, and Federal government support.

In September 1999, a IWGN Workshop Report, Nanotechnology Research Directions, built upon the foundation provided in the first report and incorporated a vision for how the nanotechnology community -- Federal agencies, industries, universities, and professional societies -- can more effectively coordinate efforts to develop a wide range of revolutionary commercial applications. The report incorporated perspectives developed at a January 1999 IWGN-sponsored workshop of experts from universities, industry, and the Federal government. The report identified challenges and opportunities in the nanotechnology field and outlined the necessary steps on how advances made in nano-science, engineering, and technology (NSET) can help to boost our nation’s economy, ensure better healthcare, and enhance national security in the coming decade.

Preparing for the challenges of the new millennium requires strategic investments that will help our nation develop a balanced R&D nanotechnology infrastructure, advance critical research areas, and nurture the scientific and technical workforce of the next century. On January 21, 2000, President Clinton announced that the Administration is making nanotechnology research and development a top priority for the future. This major new research activity, called the National Nanotechnology Initiative (NNI), is included as a $227 million increase in the President's FY 2001 budget request to Congress. The initiative will strengthen scientific disciplines and create critical interdisciplinary opportunities. Agencies participating in NNI include the National Science Foundation (NSF), the Department of Defense (DOD), the Department of Energy (DOE), National Institutes of Health (NIH), National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), and Department of Commerce’s National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST).

The Department of Energy's portion of the increase for the National Nanotechnology Initiative is $36 million in FY 2001, a 62 percent increase over FY 2000 investments in these areas. The DOE has a stunning portfolio of research and scientific user facilities devoted to visualizing, characterizing, and controlling the nanoworld – from atoms and molecules to bulk materials – which makes the Department's research capabilities unique in the world. The DOE is currently making a broad range of contributions in these areas. For example, the enhanced properties of nanocrystals for novel catalysts, tailored light emission and propagation, nanocomposites and supercapacitors are all being explored. Nanocrystals and layered structures offer unique opportunities for tailoring the optical, magnetic, electronic, mechanical and chemical properties of materials, and DOE researchers are have synthesized layered structures for electronics, novel magnets, and surfaces with tailored hardness.

Specific examples of past accomplishments at DOE include:

• Addition of aluminum oxide nanoparticles that converts aluminum metal into a material with wear resistance equal to that of the best bearing steel

• Novel optical properties of semiconducting nanocrystals that are used to label and track molecular processes in living cells

• Nanoscale layered materials that can yield a four-fold increase in the performance of permanent magnets

• Layered quantum well structures to produce highly efficient, low-power light sources and photovoltaic cells

• Novel chemical properties of nanocrystals that show promise as photocatalysts to speed the breakdown of toxic wastes

• Meso-porous inorganic hosts with self-assembled organic monolayers that are used to trap and remove heavy metals from the environment

The DOE also maintains a large array of major national user facilities that are ideally suited to nanoscience discovery and to developing a fundamental understanding of nanoscale processes. Large computational facilities at DOE will also be key contributors in nanoscience discovery, modeling and understanding.

Major new efforts in nanoscale science, engineering, and technology at the Department of Energy will take advantage of opportunities afforded by recent advances. These efforts will be part of the Basic Energy Sciences (BES) program and have the following broad goals: (1) to attain a fundamental scientific understanding of nanoscale phenomena, particularly collective phenomena; (2) to achieve the ability to design and synthesize materials at the atomic level to produce materials with desired properties and functions; (3) to attain a fundamental understanding of the processes by which living organisms create materials and functional complexes to serve as a guide and a benchmark by which to measure our progress in synthetic design and synthesis; and (4) to develop experimental characterization tools and theory/modeling/simulation tools necessary to drive the nanoscale revolution.

The principal missions of DOE in science, energy, defense, and environment will benefit greatly from developments in these areas. For example, nanoscale synthesis and assembly methods will result in significant improvements in solar energy conversion; more energy-efficient lighting; stronger, lighter materials that will improve efficiency in transportation; greatly improved chemical and biological sensing; use of low-energy chemical pathways to break down toxic substances for environmental remediation and restoration; and better sensors and controls to increase efficiency in manufacturing.

BES has been a leader in the early development of nanoscale science, engineering, and technology since the 1980s, supporting research and sponsoring workshops to help establish the importance of nanostructured materials. Because of the confluence of advances during the past decade, BES is now proposing a major effort in nanoscale science, engineering, and technology to take advantage of opportunities afforded by these advances. This research involves materials sciences, chemistry, physics, biology, and computation. The BES program has worked with the National Science and Technology Council’s Interagency Working Group on Nanotechnology, with the Basic Energy Sciences Advisory Committee (BESAC), and with the broader scientific community from academia, industry, and the national laboratories to define and articulate the goals of this research and to determine how best to implement a program of research.

Based on recent recommendations from BESAC, the BES program will establish a portfolio of programs balanced in scope and in size, ranging from individual principal investigators to large groups. Proposals will be encouraged from relatively small groups of a few principal investigators at universities and/or national laboratories as well as from larger groups focused on particular problems such as might be appropriate for a university center, a national laboratory, or a user facility. Interactions among scientists with a diverse set of skills in areas such as molecular design, synthesis and assembly, molecular modeling, instrumentation development, theory and modeling, and device engineering will also be encouraged. Involvement of young investigators -- graduate students, postdoctoral research associates, and young facility and staff -- with appropriate expertise is critical to the success of the science and to the evolving future of this field. Interactions among several institutions, including both academic and national laboratory partners, is expected to occur naturally for each of the major focus areas. It is expected that newly funded work will be approximately equally distributed between academic and DOE laboratory efforts.

The first goal of this work as noted above is fundamental scientific understanding of structures and interactions at the nanoscale, particularly collective phenomena. It is known that when sample size, grain size, or domain size shrink to the nanoscale, physical properties are strongly affected and may differ dramatically from the corresponding properties in the bulk. Yet, there is remarkably little experience with phenomena at the nanoscale. Because of this limited experience, the physical and chemical properties of nanoscale systems are not understood. In effect, this is a new subject with its own set of physical principles, theoretical descriptions, and experimental techniques. One of the most interesting aspects of materials at the nanoscale involves properties dominated by collective phenomena -- phenomena that emerge from the interactions of the components of the material and whose behavior thus differs significantly from the behavior of those individual components. In some case, collective phenomena can bring about a large response to a small stimulus -- as seen with colossal magnetoresistance, the basis of a new generation of recording memory material. Collective phenomena are also at the core of the mysteries of such materials as the high-temperature superconductors, one of the great outstanding problems in condensed matter physics.

The second goal of this work -- the design and synthesis of materials at the atomic level for desired properties and functions -- is the heart of nanoscale science, engineering, and technology. In the future, design and synthesis of new materials at the atomic level will be accomplished using only the electronic structure of the elements. The properties of new materials will not only be a function of their composition but also of the conditions under which they were synthesized. New synthesis conditions might include nonequilibrium, high pressure, high magnetic field, and high energy density. Also, massively parallel fabrication/characterization combinatorial approaches will be employed. The new field of functional materials would include the design of molecular building blocks, the design of multicomponent structures, and the design of molecular machines.

The third goal of this work is the fundamental understanding of the processes by which living organisms create materials and functional complexes. Nanoscale science, engineering, and technology thus inexorably links the physical and biological sciences. Nature arranges atoms and molecules precisely into three-dimensional objects of extraordinary complexity to produce objects with required optical, mechanical, electrical, catalytic, and tribological properties. Nature has also learned how to combine materials and structures to build molecular-level machines. Some of these molecular machines serve as pumps, moving material across barriers; others move molecules, structures, or whole cells; others control processes acting as regulatory systems; and still others produce or convert energy. A major challenge in the physical sciences is to understand how Nature makes these complex objects and molecular machines so that we can develop the tools to design and build materials that function as we want -- materials that have not been envisioned by Mother Nature but use Nature’s self assembly techniques. By understanding and applying these principles to artificial systems, we can make potentially immense advances in diverse areas including energy conversion; data transmission, processing, and storage; "smart" and adaptable materials; sensors for industrial, environmental, and defense purposes; new catalysts; better drugs; and more efficient waste disposal.

The fourth goal of this work is the development of experimental characterization tools and theory/modeling/simulation tools. The history of science has shown that new tools drive scientific revolutions. They allow the discovery of phenomena not previously seen and the study of known phenomena at shorter time scales, at shorter distances, and with greater sensitivity. The BES program has been a leader in the development of tools for characterization at the nanoscale. Required new instrumentation will necessarily involve an enhancement of conventional techniques -- scanning-probe microscopies, steady-state and time-resolved spectroscopies, and so forth. However, characterization will also depend heavily on revolutionary experimental tools, including techniques for the active control of growth, for massively parallel analysis, and for small sample volumes. Capabilities will be needed for triggering, isolating, or activating single molecules; for independently addressing multiple molecules in parallel; and for transferring or harvesting energy to or from a single molecule. New generations of theory and computational tools will also be required.