News
Nanotechnology facility receives state grant
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By Carl Blesch
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Published: May 30, 2006
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The New Jersey Commission on Science and Technology has awarded Rutgers $500,000
to fund a facility with advanced nanotechnology instrumentation and fabrication
equipment. The investment will help Rutgers acquire and operate equipment needed to build and study structures mere nanometers in size, or less than a thousandth the width of a human hair.
The facility, named “NJ Nano @ RU,” will be part of the Institute for Advanced Materials and Devices (IAMD) and open to researchers from New Jersey universities and industries. These include companies in the biotechnology, communications, energy, pharmaceutical and petrochemical fields.
Nanotechnology is fast becoming part of advanced mechanical, electronic, photonic and biological applications. According to the National Science Foundation, the technology will be responsible for more than $1 trillion in products and services worldwide by 2015.
The state’s funding supplements $5 million in federal grants and private donations to Rutgers for highly sophisticated instrumentation, including the state’s most powerful electron microscope, which produces high-resolution atomic images. The funding also will support equipment for fabricating new classes of electronic devices and pharmaceutical chemicals.
Faculty overseeing the NJ Nano @ RU facility are Yves Chabal in the departments of chemistry, biomedical engineering and physics; Eric Garfunkel, department of chemistry; Yicheng Lu, department of electrical and computer engineering; and Fernando Muzzio, department of chemical and biochemical engineering.
The commission also awarded New Jersey Technology Fellowships to doctoral graduates
of New Jersey research universities hired by emerging high-technology companies in the state. First-year fellowships worth $75,000 each went to Rutgers graduates Eiman Elnahrwy at Kordinate LLC in Piscataway, Eduardo Perez at Signum Biosciences in Monmouth Junction and Megan Tierney at ProFACT Proteomics in North Brunswick. An $85,000 second-year fellowship went to David Fela, also at Signum Biosciences. In addition, the commission awarded grants under a pilot program to support technology entrepreneurs partnering with research universities. Working with Rutgers and receiving a $300,000 grant is UV Solutions Inc. of Newark.
Return to the May 30, 2006 issue
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