Ben Franklin Technology Partners of Southeastern, PA

For the Mid-Atlantic Region, the Nanotechnology Institute represents a comprehensive model for nanotech-based regional development in the pharmaceutical, life sciences and materials industries. Its organizing partners, Ben Franklin Technology Partners of Southeastern Pennsylvania, Drexel University and the University of Pennsylvania, will highlight the Institute's unique components and its progress-to-date.

  California Molecular Electronics Corporation (CALMEC)

CALMEC formed in 1997 for the purpose of commercializing nanotechnologies, provides research and development services and technology licensing in the field of molecular electronics. The Company owns patent and trade secret rights to numerous enabling nanotechnologies including the Chiropticene^TM switch, the first practical molecular switch with applications in computation, data storage, telecommunications, and imaging. The CALMEC exhibit will showcase the future economic and scientific impacts of its Chiropticene^TM switching technology. This single-molecule switch, the development of which was funded in part through a National Science Foundation SBIR Phase I grant, has many diverse commercial applications including those of a nano-scaled molecular memory device and a fiber optic switching matrix.

  The City College of New York; IGERT: Nanostructural Materials and Devices

This IGERT project couples research activities at three colleges of The City University of New York (CUNY) with those of collaborators at Columbia University and the University of Rochester in several unique focus areas of nanotechnology. The participating colleges from CUNY are the City College, Hunter College and The College of Staten Island. An important goal for this project is to enhance the research activities and pedagogy for participant graduate students, the majority from underrepresented groups, with the anticipated outcome of attracting more students into the nanotechnology field and retaining them to completion of their Ph.D. degrees. The overall mission is to educate and train students in an interdisciplinary environment whereby a graduate student may participate in all the facets of a research project: synthesis, materials fabrication, characterization, etc. Students are not just sources of samples or instrument technicians. A slogan that we believe captures the style of our collaborative involvement of students is "We send students, not just samples!"

  Cornell University: National Nanofabrication Users Network (NNUN)

The National Nanofabrication Users Network (NNUN) is a group of five advanced fabrication facilities working together to provide access for users to sophisticated nanofabrication technologies. Its laboratories are located at Cornell University, Stanford University, Howard University, Penn State University and the University of California-Santa Barbara. Funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF), NNUN is in its ninth year of operation and with over 1,700 users each year. The exhibit describes NNUN facilities, equipment and technology as well as show some of the online training and project support facilities available.

  Digital Instruments, Veeco Metrology Group: "NanoMan"

Digital Instruments, Veeco Metrology Group will be demonstrating the "NanoMan," Nanomanipulation and Nanolithography System which provides the capability to move and manipulate nano-scale objects, such as carbon nanotubes and nanoparticles, and to introduce patterns on surfaces with nanometer dimensions.

  National Nanotechnology Initiative (NSF)

The National Nanotechnology Initiative (NNI) (http://nano.gov) is a visionary program that emphasizes long-term, fundamental research aimed at discovering novel phenomena and processes, advancing R&D Grand Challenges, supporting new interdisciplinary centers and networks of excellence including shared user facilities, funding research and education infrastructure, and addressing the societal implications of advances in nanoscience and nanotechnology. The FY 2003 President's budget request of about $710 million for federal investment in nanoscale science, engineering and technology is a 17% increase over FY 2002. The FY 2002 nanoscale R&D budget appropriated by Congress is approximately $604 million. Three new R&D areas of focus are planned in all federal departments and agencies: manufacturing processes at the nanoscale, use of nanotechnology for chemical-biological-radioactive-explosive detection and protection, and development of instrumentation and metrology at the nanoscale.

  Northwestern University: Making Useful Nano-Objects with Designed Molecules

This exhibit describes the three major projects being developed in the Stupp laboratory using self-assembly to create useful nano-objects. The first project utilizes a small triblock polymer to self-assemble into a mushroom shaped nano-object. These "mushrooms" have unique properties, which are a consequence of their designed shape and chemistry and may have utility in the coating of various materials to prevent adhesion of unwanted molecules such as ice on airplane wings or blood clotting in blood vessels. The second project uses a different triblock polymer, which self-assembles into ribbon like nano-objects. These ribbons could be used for applications as diverse as additives to common polymers to enhance their material properties to templates for the formation of nano-wires and semi-conductors. The third project uses the self-assembly of a peptide based molecule to make a bioactive nanofiber. These fibers can be tailored to display specific chemistry that may be useful in bone repair, drug delivery and nerve regeneration.

  University of Texas at Austin; NSF GOALI Project: Manufacture and Application of Nanoparticles

The exhibit briefly describes and illustrates nanoparticle technology, the GOALI activities with partner company DuPont, and the students and personnel involved in this project.

  University of Wisconsin-Madison/MRSEC: "Hands-On" Nanoscience for Everyone

Gigabyte computer disk drives, "smart" materials that remember their shape, and light-emitting diodes (LEDs) used in lighting and display applications are important technologies that make daily contributions to our lives. Nanotechnology has played a key role in the development of all of these devices, which are based on atomically engineered materials. The demonstrations in this exhibit provide a glimpse into the "nanoworld", the science and engineering of materials at the scale of the atom, by explaining how nanotechnologists can image atoms, assemble atoms, and customize the properties of materials from the "bottom up".

NSF NANOSCALE SCIENCE AND ENGINEERING CENTERS (NSECS):

  Columbia University Center for Electron Transport in Molecular Nanostructures

The exhibit describes nanotechnology programs at Columbia University with an emphasis on the new Columbia Nanotechnology Center, including goals and directions of the Nanocenter and the general approach that the Columbia Nanocenter is taking.

  Cornell University: Center for Nanoscale Systems in Information Technologies

This Nanoscale Science and Engineering Center, based at Cornell University, also includes participants at Colgate University, the University of New Mexico, Brigham Young University and Pomona College and strong collaborations with industrial partners, including Corning, Inc., IBM, Motorola, NonVolatile Electronics. The exhibit describes the four major research thrusts of this new Center, which have the objective of substantially advancing the development of nanoscale electronic, photonic, and magnetic devices and systems that collectively, have the prospects of revolutionizing future high-performance electronics, information storage, communications, and sensor technologies. The exhibit also describes how this Center seeks to attract and educate substantial numbers of a diverse population of students, at all levels, in both introductory and advanced topics in nanoscale science and engineering, while also reaching out to assist and support K-12 institutions in their science education programs.

  Harvard University: Science of Nanoscale Systems & Their Device Applications

This Nanoscale Science and Engineering Center is a collaboration among Harvard University, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, the University of California at Santa Barbara and the Museum of Science in Boston with participation by Delft University of Technology (Netherlands), the University of Tokyo (Japan), and Brookhaven National Laboratory, Oak Ridge National Laboratory and Sandia National Laboratory. The exhibit describes how this new Center combines "top down" and "bottom up" approaches to construct novel electronic and magnetic devices with nanoscale sizes and understand their behavior, including quantum phenomena. Through a close integration of research, education, and public outreach, the Center encourages and promotes the training of a diverse group of people to be leaders in this new interdisciplinary field.

  Northwestern University: NSEC for Integrated Nanopatterning and Detection Technologies

What if...You could detect thousands of diseases with something as small as the tip of a hypodermic needle?

What if...The buildings you lived and worked in were equipped with sensors that could detect minute quantities of all biological and chemical hazards and provide appropriate safety measures?

What if...There was a reliable, inexpensive, and portable way to ensure that the world's drinking water and food supplies were free from contamination?

This exhibit describes how this new Center and its pioneering advances in nanoscale science and technology in the area of chemical and biological sensors could make these dreams a reality. The synergistic team behind this effort includes Northwestern University, the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, the University of Chicago, Harold Washington College, the Museum of Science and Industry of Chicago, Argonne National Laboratory, and many industrial partners. Through the integration of state-of-the art research and innovative educational outreach programs the Center seeks to foster a lifelong interest in science and technology by teaching people of all ages about the nano-world, and to advance the progress of science, engineering, and related education in the realm of nanoscience and nanotechnology.

  Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute

National Science Foundation Center for Directed Assembly of Nanostructures at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute was created to discover ways to assemble "nanoparticles," with their amazing new properties, so that the promise of such profound advances are completely realized. Through the process of "directed" assembly, structures will be designed and experimentally created into the revolutionary materials of nanotechnology that will change the world.

  Rice University: Center for Biological and Environmental Nanotechnology (CBEN)

This exhibit provides an overview of the Rice University Nanoscale Science and Engineering Center (CBEN). Working toward transforming nanotechnology from a laboratory curiosity into a real-world tool, this center is focusing on the "wet/dry" interface between complex aqueous systems and nanomaterials. Research thrust areas include medical therapeutics/diagnostics and environmental engineering. Novel programs involving entrepreneurship education, high-school teacher training, and nanomanufacturing are also described.