By Jodi Ackerman

More than 40 years ago, Nobel laureate physicist Richard Feynman was the first scientist to publicly express the notion that devices and materials someday could be created one atom at a time. His challenge to the scientific community to build small has exploded into what now is known as nanotechnology—the “shrinking” technology in which devices and new materials are built and manipulated one molecule at a time, one atom at a time.

“Nanostructuring represents the beginning of a revolutionary new age in our ability to manipulate materials for the good of humanity,” says Richard W. Siegel, director of the Rensselaer Nanotechnology Center.

Nanotechnology uses molecules and atoms to make nanometer-size building blocks to construct new materials. One nanometer is a billionth of a meter. Consider that hundreds of thousands of nanosize particles could fit inside the period at the end of this sentence. By these standards, a human blood cell is mammoth—about 7.5 micrometers in diameter, or 7,500 nanometers.

Nanotechnology holds promise for artificial hips that never need replacing, sophisticated drug-delivery systems for the human body, and faster electronic devices thousands of times smaller than current technologies permit. That is why this all-encompassing field is a major part of Rensselaer’s dual focus on biotechnology and information technology.

In March, Institute President Shirley Ann Jackson announced the creation of the Rensselaer Nanotechnology Center to provide a major resource to advance the enormous scientific promise represented by nanotechnology. Integrating research, education, and technology commercialization through partnerships with government and industry, the center focuses on research in advanced materials and coatings, biosciences and biotechnology, microelectronics, nanoelectronics, and other nanosystems.

The center already is gaining strength from extensive collaborations with government, industry, and other universities. The RPI-Industry Partnership in Nanotechnology now includes ABB, Albany International, Eastman Kodak, Philip Morris, and IBM. In addition, Los Alamos National Laboratory provides the center with access to the world’s largest high-performance computational resources in computer modeling and simulation of nanoscale materials.

“The Nanotechnology Center is a focal point for unique interdisciplinary research for people across campus,” Siegel says.

To reap the benefits of what could be a worldwide technological revolution, the U.S. government has made research in nanotechnology a national priority. It is turning to research universities and industries to provide the best opportunity for nanoscience discoveries to flourish.

Siegel, the Robert W. Hunt Professor of Materials Science and Engineering, served as chairman of a panel that conducted a two-year, international study of nanostructure science and technology, completed in 1998. The study, supported by the World Technology Evaluation Center and funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF) as well as numerous other U.S. government agencies, was the cornerstone of a national nanotechnology initiative that has poured more than $420 million into nanotechnology research and development this year alone.

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