University of Cincinnati
The University of Cincinnati's Institute for Nanoscale Science and Technology (INST) brings together three centers of excellence, the Center for Nanoscale Materials Science, the Center for BioMEMS and Nanobiosystems, and the Center for Nanophotonics, composed of faculty from the Colleges of Engineering, Arts and Sciences, and Medicine.GOALS
INST's goals are to develop a world class infrastructure of enabling technologies, to support advanced collaborative research on nanoscale materials and devices, and to advance high technology economic development within Ohio.
Center for Nanoscale Materials Science
The Center for Nanoscale Materials Science represents the revolutionary new field in which materials are created through the control of matter on the nanometer-length scale, i.e., at the level of atoms and molecules, and then combined to generate larger structures with fundamentally new atomic/molecular organization. These new materials exhibit profoundly different physical, chemical, and mechanical properties than their macroscopic counterparts and, when assembled into larger structures, are expected to enable revolutionary advances in fields such as transportation, microelectronics, and medicine.
Center for BioMEMS and Nanobiosystems
Center for BioMEMS and Nanobiosystems researchers are developing new and innovative biomedical and biochemical analysis systems incorporating bioMEMS. Applications include environmental nanosystems, point-of-care testing, haptics and biosurgery, microfluidics and labs-on-a-chip, and proteomics and genomics.
Center for Nanophotonics
The Center for Nanophotonics brings together researchers from the Departments of Electrical & Computer Engineering and Computer Science (ECECS), Chemistry, and Physics. Photonics-based research covers optical information processing and memories, connectivity, optical sensing, solid-state lighting, and basic studies of quantum dot lasers, photonic waveguide devices for optical communications utilizing wavelength multiplexing, and photonic bandgap structures.
INST researchers have access to outstanding experimental resources, including the UC Nanofabrication Facility and the Advanced Materials Characterization Center, both located in the new University of Cincinnati Engineering Research Center.
The Engineering Research Center Clean Room (www.eng.uc.edu/erccleanroom/) is a central fabrication, processing, and characterization center intended to be used by a diverse campus wide research community. The more than 8000 square foot facility includes class 10, 100, 1000, and 10,000 clean room spaces, with lithography, deposition, etching, oxidation, diffusion, and characterization capabilities. The newest arrival to the facility is the Raith 150 E-Beam Lithography tool that enables researchers to directly write pattern sub-100 nm features for nanoscale device fabrication