The College of Engineering (CoE) is a member of the winning team of universities that landed a $70 million National Science Foundation (NSF) grant over five years to open access to nanotechnology resources.

The National Nanotechnology Infrastructure Network (NINN) is a group of 13 powerhouse institutions that will receive $14 million annually to support additional staff at their respective nanoscience facilities, says Khalil Najafi, director of the Solid State Electronics Laboratory (SSEL) in CoE. The goal of NNIN is to open access to nanotechnology resources and equipment to all universities and private companies.

“This is one of the largest activities that NSF has funded,” Najafi says. “It’s not research, but it’s an important part of the plan of the NSF for making sure that the nation as a whole has access to the greatest and latest tools and facilities to foster working in nanotech.”

Nanotechnology is important because all manufactured products are made of atoms. The best manufacturing today moves molecules around; nanotech can move atoms—sub-units of those molecules. The ability to control materials at the atomic level will lead to new products that are easier, faster, cheaper and stronger, in the same ways that they are made in nature.

The NSF projects a $1 trillion annual market by 2015 for nanotechnology alone, and both U-M and the State of Michigan are aggressively positioning themselves as research and business leaders in that market. CoE plans to raise $35 million for nanoscience as part of its $300 million ongoing capital campaign. The money will double the size of the college’s current SSEL.

The Michigan Economic Development Corp. created the Michigan Small Tech Association in late 2002 and launched a dedicated small tech Web site at http://www.michigansmalltech.com. In March, Small Times magazine named Michigan eighth in the country for the development of micro and nanotechnology, up from ninth the year before.

In Michigan, the auto industry will benefit first from nanotechnology, says John Bedz, director of the Michigan Small Tech Association. It’s still too early for accurate economic impact projections, but nanotechnology will impact all industries in Michigan, Bedz says.

“It’s not going to create X number of jobs, but job preservation will outpace job creation as competency with these technologies sustains the region as the place where high-tech development continues,” he says.

The money from the NNIN grant will be used to hire staff to support the additional users in the facilities, and to fund outreach and education.

Besides U-M, the NNIN team includes nanoscience powerhouses such as Harvard, Stanford, Cornell, Howard and North Carolina State universities, University of Washington, Georgia Institute of Technology, University of Minnesota, Penn State, University of Texas at Austin, University of New Mexico, and University of California, Santa Barbara.