Science Center offers new options
By Anne Marie Mattingly
Associate News Editor
Following 15 years of research and development, Notre Dame opened its Center for Nanoscience and Technology last November.
Nanoscience is science performed on a small scale, said Nina Welding, editor of college publications for the College of Engineering.
"`Nano' refers to small or milli-micro sized items," she said. "Nano `scientists' can be engineers or biologists or chemists — in fact many of them are now working together in the University to study ways to complete applications currently going on, but on a molecular level."
The center will focus specifically on nanoelectronics, the study of molecule-sized elements. At present this field is under the direction of the electrical engineering department. The center will include faculty representing the departments of electrical engineering, computer science and engineering, chemistry, biochemistry and physics.
"The … center will investigate the principles of nanosciences, new architectures based on nanoelectric devices and nanoengineered mechanical, chemical and electronic systems," said literature provided by Welding. "Initial projects will include an integrated image processor, first-generation microprocessor and network of quantum based devices that can be used in a variety of digital applications."
But the center's directors believe the greater purpose is to bring together scientific minds.
"A key goal of the new center is to serve as a national resource — a think tank — where technologists from industry can come to explore nanoconcepts for engineering applications," said director Gerald Iafrate in a press release. "This will benefit students and provide industry with long-range opportunities."
Center information stresses the future of nanoscience.
"Nanoscience offers new frontiers in engineering devices on a molecular level that are well on their way to ushering electronics into the next century," said the literature. "[It] is a vital field for the next generation. What is at stake is not solely logic functions — computers — but lighter and stronger cars, planes, a reduction in energy needs — a technological revolution."
One current project involving Notre Dame faculty in the realm of nanoscience concerns developing a new type of computer chip based on a system called quantum-dot cellular automata. The new technology aims to circumvent problems with current microchip technology by using quantum dots — structures that confine a single electron — to create electrical signals instead of transistors.
"In the summer of 1997, [a Notre Dame] team demonstrated the first real nanodevice, a prototype of a quantum-dot cell that validated the proposed operating principles. The University was and is the only research facility to have accomplished this feat, something many of the team's counterparts said couldn't be done," explained the literature.
"Notre Dame has developed this area of nanodevices," said Wolfgang Porod of the department of electrical engineering in the information. "We now have a strong core competency and expect to expand this, as well as explore other concepts in nanoscience and technology."
All News Stories for Tuesday, February 15, 2000
