University Times

Pitt is planning a big expansion into one of the tiniest realms of science — nanotechnology.

The University plans to invest $6.1 million to build a nanotechnology facility in the sub-basement of Benedum Hall and to hire nine more faculty to study the cutting-edge technology.

Nanoscience is the study of things smaller than 100 nanometers — the size of a thousandth of the width of one human hair.

“Pitt intends to be a leader in this emerging field,” said Provost James Maher during a virtual groundbreaking of the facility last week.

University researchers have been dedicated to studying what currently is known as nanotechnology for more than a decade. In 2002, Pitt established the Institute of NanoScience and Engineering to coordinate and the work of 40 faculty researchers from Pitt’s School of Engineering, School of Arts and Sciences and Schools of the Health Sciences.

The 4,000-square-foot Nano-Scale Fabrication and Characterization Facility (NFCF), expected to open at the end of the year, will serve as a hub, well equipped for nanoscience researchers to interact and collaborate. “This new facility will offer a common, shared area for researchers on campus to come to and share equipment,” said Hong Koo Kim, professor of electrical and computer engineering and co-director of the Institute of NanoScience and Engineering.

Nanotechnology and nanoengineering use atoms and molecules as basic blocks to build minuscule machines, create new materials and perform molecular tasks. Applications for nanotechnology — still very much in the exploration stage — include environmental protection, faster and higher capacity computing, new synthetic materials, energy storage and conversion and biomedical applications from tissue engineering to disease detection.

In the last several years, nanotechnology discoveries at Pitt have been licensed by three start-up companies and PPG Industries. PPG is using polymerized crystalline colloidal arrays for use in paint and coatings. This new synthetic material, which changes color under different light conditions, can be used, for example, as a coating for automobiles. And one of the start-up companies, Glucose Sensing Technology, is working with a glucose measurement sensor, applied via a contact lens, that monitors the level of glucose in a diabetic’s body.

“Our No. 1 asset is that our nanoscience program is based on our core strengths in the basic sciences, where we are focused at the ‘essentially nano’ level,” Maher said. That level, ranging from one to 10 nanometers, is a place where matter takes on quite different physical properties. That part of the nanoscale, which runs from one to 100 nanometers, represents the smallest part of the scale, according to Kim.

“When you are in that small of a scale, the properties of the material are usually governed by different principles that you can cannot observe on a larger scale,” he explained. “There are novel properties and there’s a high potential for new materials, new structures for new devices, basically creating new applications,” Kim added.

New equipment planned for NFCF will offer a unique collection with capabilities in one to 10 nanometers, according to Kim. Equipment includes new electron microscopes, scanning probe systems and electron/ion beam lithography systems.

The institute will be bolstered by three additional faculty each in chemistry, physics and the School of Engineering over the next several years.

Maher said that he hopes NFCF will attract more talent and grants to the University and provide opportunities for partnerships with industry.

—Mary Ann Thomas