Maryland legislators approved a $3.65 million grant for the university’s NanoCenter, Gov. Robert Ehrlich announced last Thursday, bolstering the already top-rated nanotechnology program available to engineering majors.
The money, which was made available through the governor’s nanotechnology initiative and a fund aimed at spurring economic development in the state, will be used to purchase major equipment for the NanoCenter’s FabLab in the newly opened Jeong H. Kim Engineering Building, officials said.
The campus’ FabLab is a cleanroom used for nano- and micro-fabrication to support various research programs. There, faculty and students work in nanotechnology – a form of engineering that deals with building electronic circuits and devices smaller than 100 nanometers. The tiny devices, invisible to the naked eye, are dwarfed even by a human hair, which is about 70,000 to 80,000 nanometers thick.
Advances in nanotechnology have been used in household products such as sunscreen and sunglasses and medical advances such as a type of cancer treatment.
“The money is intended to purchase major cutting-edge equipment, which is necessary to do the kind of excellent work done on this campus,” said Gary Rubloff, the director of the Maryland Center for Integrated Nano Science and Engineering (M-CINSE). With the new funding, “students working in nano research groups will have access to very competitive and cutting-edge equipment,” he said.
M-CINSE is a partnership between the A. James Clark School of Engineering; the College of the Computer, Mathematical and Physical Sciences; and the College of Chemical and Life Sciences that works to promote nano research and facilitates nano activities at the university.
Rubloff believes the addition of the equipment will put the university in an “unusual and unique position” with nano research and will positively affect recruitment of faculty and students.
In a statement, Ehrlich said the funding would positively impact the university and allow it to continue partnering with local companies to provide accessibility to equipment and technical expertise.
“Maryland is ideally poised to achieve a sustained leadership position in nanotechnology with major benefit to economic, employment and workforce development in this critical industry, as well as to university excellence,” Ehrlich said.
The equipment, which is in the process of being ordered, is expected to arrive on the campus during the next few months to be fully ready to use by the spring semester.
In 2005, Maryland was ranked as one of the top 10 states in nanotechnology by Small Times magazine for its position in leading nanotechnology research and product development.
Contact reporter Caren Oppenheim at newsdesk@dbk.umd.edu.
