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Sometimes Being Very Small Can be Very Big: ONAMI and Nanotechnology |
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| Joe St Sauver, Ph.D. Director, User Services and Network Applications joe@uoregon.edu While attending Innotech Oregon 2004 at the Oregon Convention Center in Portland last month, I had a chance to sit in on two sessions relating to ONAMI. If, like me, you didn't know ONAMI existed, read on. ONAMI is, and will continue to be, tremendously important for the UO, Oregon, and the United States. What Is ONAMI?ONAMI (literally, "great wave") is the Oregon Nanoscience and Microtechnologies Institute, a collaborative project undertaken by the University of Oregon, Oregon State University, Portland State University, and the Pacific Northwest National Labs (PNNL), in conjunction with industry partners and others. ONAMI focuses on research at the micro and nano scale, and is designed to position Oregon as a national leader in nanotechnology research and development. You can visit the ONAMI web site at http://www.onami.us/ Why Is Nanotechnology Such a Big Deal?A conservative rule to use when evaluating new projects is to look at their funding and the people they attract. In the case of nanotechnology in general and ONAMI in particular, both the funding and the personnel are impressive: from the President of the United States on down, nanotechnology has attracted important interest and support. On December 3, 2003, President Bush signed the "21st Century Nanotechnology Research and Development Act," which was co-authored by Oregon's very own Senator Ron Wyden. That act appropriated $3.7 billion (with a "b") dollars over four years for nanotechnology-related programs. For the full text of the act, see http://frwebgate.access.gpo.gov/cgi-bin/getdoc.cgi?dbname=108_cong_public_laws&docid=f:publ153.108Oregon's legislature and Governor Theodore Kulongoski are likewise very supportive, having appropriated $21 million in bonds to help subsidize ONAMI. According to an EE Times report (http://www.eetimes.com/at/news/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=18700587), total funding for ONAMI is about $75 million. Governor Kulongoski also personally appeared to give a speech at Innotech, signalling both his personal interest in nanotechnology and his confidence in ONAMI. At Innotech, the vice presidents for research at UO, OSU, and Portland State shared information about nanotech-related programs at their respective campuses, as did senior technical managers from PNNL, HP, Intel, and other organizations. It is hard to get much bigger names, or much greater financial support, for any project these days. But let's not get tied up in politics and financial issues! Just How Small Is A Nanometer?Nanometers are very small. Mechanically speaking, a nanometer is 1x10^-9 meters (e.g., there are a billion nanometers in one meter). Most of us have a hard time conceptualizing abstract measurements that small. To help people visualize the minute scale of a nanometer, the most commonly used example is a strand of hair: a single human hair is normally 60,000 to 120,000 nanometers wide! A nice graphic representation of things at the microscale and nanoscale can be found at http://www.sc.doe.gov/bes/Scale_of_Things_07OCT03.pdf Who Are the Leading Competitors?Perhaps the leading competitors in nanotechnology are the six universities that have already been designated as NSF Nanoscale Science and Engineering Centers, charged with work in a particular area of applied nanotechnology. Those six schools are Columbia, Cornell, Harvard, Northwestern, Rensellaer Polytechnic Institute, and Rice.UCLA has also been tapped to lead a nano manufacturing center, as has theUniversity of Illinois Urbana Champaign. For more information on these nanotech centers, see http://www.nsf.gov/home/crssprgm/nano/centers.htm Outside of Oregon, other schools that are also working in the nanotechnology area include Northeastern, Notre Dame, Purdue, and South Carolina. Where Can I Find More Information?Below is a list of online resources pertaining to Innotech, ONAMI, and nanotechnology:
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