In Brief: Nanotechnology at NIST

Ever smaller and ever faster. The pursuit of nanotechnology—novel materials, devices, and an unending assortment of other useful “things” with features on the scale between one-billionth of a meter (about 10 hydrogen atoms across) and 100-billionths of a meter—is driving science and engineering to extremes.

Consider work under way at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), where research truly is pushing the limits of technology. NIST scientists and engineers are building, for example, atom and electron counters, single-photon turnstiles, ultracold ion and atom traps, and lasers that generate uniform pulses of light lasting only a few trillionths of a second.

For NIST, the quest to design, manipulate, manufacture, and assemble at the molecular and atomic levels translates into a full agenda of demanding measurement jobs and related tasks.

NIST role

Researchers in NIST’s seven major laboratories are developing measurements, standards, and data crucial to private industry’s development of nano-technology products for a diverse global market that could top $2.5 trillion within a decade. Just like gage blocks (standardized sets of hardened steel blocks of accurately determined thicknesses) and other widely adopted measurement tools that enabled the rise of mass production and interchangeable parts, a shared foundation of exceedingly accurate measurement technologies will be essential to realizing the anticipated bounty of nanotechnol-ogy products and services.

NIST’s work also aids federal agencies’ efforts to exploit nanotechnology to further their missions, such as national security and environmental protection. These technical contributions are in addition to NIST’s funding support for U.S. industry’s nano-technology development work.

NIST and the National Nanotechnology Initiative

Crystal structure of a biological nanopore. Song et al. 1996. Science 274, 1859

NIST is a key contributor to the National Nanotechnology Initiative (NNI), a long-term federal effort to speed the pace of progress in nanoscale science, engineering, and technology. In the 2005 fiscal year, NIST funding for nano-technology-related projects will total about $58.5 million.

NIST leads efforts to address two of the NNI’s “grand challenges”: one on instrumentation and metrology (measurement science) and, with the National Science Foundation, one on manufacturing processes. It also contributes significantly to work on materials, electronics and optoelectronics, and elements of other initiative grand challenges.

The President and Congress also have allocated an additional $3 million to accelerate and intensify NIST’s globally recognized work in quantum information science. This work aims to exploit the peculiar quantum behavior of molecules, atoms, and subatomic particles and to pave the way for enormously powerful quantum computers and perfectly secure communications systems.

Scan of the NIST laboratory ‘nano’ portfolio

United by a focus on measurements, data, and standards, nanotechnology efforts in the NIST laboratories reach well beyond current capabilities, all the way into the fuzzy, probabilistic realm of quantum mechanics. Projects cut across five key areas.

Cobalt atoms (blue) on a copper surface. Swirls indicate interactions between cobalt and copper electrons./Joseph A. Stroscio/NIST

Fundamental science and basic measurement capabilities

NIST is working to meet needs shared by the many industries that will require higher-resolution measurements of length, time, force, mass, chemical composition, mechanical properties, and other variables that correspond to the scales of nanotechnology. Complementary efforts aim to develop and “harden” capabilities for manufacturing nanotechnology products.

Nanoscale electronics, optoelectronics, and magnetics

Demand for faster, more powerful information technology will not abate. Yet, current manufacturing methods are approaching the limits of continuing miniaturization. Nanotechnology and the ability to exploit quirky quantum phenomena could provide solutions to this impending challenge. Partner to the nation’s semiconductor, magnetic-data-storage, and optical-communications industries since their earliest days, NIST continues to address today’s pressing process-control and quality requirements. According to the Semiconductor Industry Association, “Research in metrology at the National Institute of Standards and Technology is critical to future chip development.”

Nanochemistry and nanobiotechnology

At its most basic level, nanotechnology is a matter of selectively breaking and making chemical bonds. The expanding ability to form novel chemical relationships can result in dramatic transformations in the properties and performance of materials. NIST’s current nanochemistry efforts range from refining NIST-developed methods for fabricating and miniaturizing components of plastic lab-on-a-chip devices to pushing far beyond the limits of chemical imaging technologies. NIST also has expanded its focus on biotechnology, where, in the long run, nanotechnology may have the greatest impact.

Characterization of nanostructured materials

Emerging capabilities to combine disparate atoms and molecules and to maximize properties by exploiting peculiar quantum behaviors are creating tantalizing opportunities. To speed progress, NIST is developing new nanometer-resolution probes of the properties and three-dimensional atomic arrangements of nanostructured materials. NIST also is building a collection of high-speed screening methods that permit designers to evaluate the strengths and weaknesses of their creations.

Quantum computing and communications

Quantum computers have the potential to store and process immensely more information than today’s most powerful computers. In addition, quantum communications techniques could vastly improve the security of data communications by making covert eavesdropping physically impossible. Internationally recognized for pioneering work in laser cooling of atoms and ions (earning two of its researchers the Nobel Prizes in Physics and a third the International Quantum Communication Award), NIST is making vital contributions to efforts to realize the vast potential of quantum information and communication technologies.

For more information on NIST’s nano-technology work, see www.nist.gov/nano.

Fun quiz: "What's Your Nano IQ?"