- Highly efficient solid-state white lighting for light-bulb replacement
- Photonic structures and devices for 'beyond Newton' approaches to optical switching, optical multiplexing, and light manipulation
- Next generation information technologies for memory and computation, including molecular electronics, understanding dna sequencs, spintronics, photonics, and quantum computing
- Development of efficient and rapid pharmaceutical screening approaches and other technologies.
- Development of ultra-early medical diagnostic tools for detecting the molecular errors in human physiology that eventually lead to disease.
Building from considerable existing strengths in nanometer structure, synthesis, imaging and assembly, and their applications to medical and information sciences, UCLA and UCSB are creating the infrastructure of people, resources, and education to underpin the science and engineering of complex nanosystems. The CNSI promotes and facilitates the speedy and robust transfer of nanosystems innovation to the marketplace, and by marrying educational and research opportunities, CNSI produces broadly trained scientists and engineers capable of sustaining California's leadership in nanotechnology into the future. Work done at the CNSI links together nanostructures to produce behaviors and information that grow exponentially with system complexity.
To produce and understand such complex nanosystems that incorporate biological and electronic nanostructures requires fundamentally new approaches to modeling, imaging, characterization, and data analysis. The rewards of creating these new approaches and meeting these new challenges help finding these great discoveries, will be great - nothing less than the development of critical technologies that will drive the future of California's economy. Although much of the science pursued within CNSI will have long-term payoffs, several near-term applications will also be realized for both information technologies and molecular medicine.
Short term and long-term applications of CNSI-related research include: