Grant aids in funding of new building for nanoscience technologies

Some of the world's smallest particles will soon have a new $13.8 million building, where nanoscientists can meticulously and accurately measure the particles' size and properties.

The construction of the Nanoscience Metrology Facility will be complete in December. It is scheduled to open in the late spring of 2012.

David Sellmyer, director of the Nebraska Center for Materials and Nanoscience, wrote the grant proposal for the new facility.

Also a professor of physics and astronomy, Sellmyer explains nanoscience in a nut shell as "the study of matter in its smallest dimensions." Metrology is the science of measurement.

The Nanoscience Metrology Facility will enable students and faculty to not only create the special miniscule objects, but measure their structure and properties too.

"Nanoscience and nanotechnology has blossomed in the past five to 10 years," Sellmyer said. "It's because of nanoscience research that we are able to have things like cell phones and computers. At the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, we emphasize nanoscience as an applied science."

The building was funded partly with a grant of $6.9 million from the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST). The other half of funding will come from university resources and private donors.

In addition to a new building, the funding will also renovate and revamp the basement of Jorgensen Hall, which opened in 2010, where nanoscientists can continue their research.

For professor of mechanical engineering Brian Robertson, the renovation of Jorgensen Hall's basement is most exciting, especially the installation of new microscopes that will be completed by the end of this year.

"These high-power and field-emission microscopes will allow students, faculty and researchers to analyze the objects they create more closely so that they can figure out how to make them better," Robertson said.

The University of Nebraska-Lincoln is one of 12 schools that was given a grant by NIST to build a scientific facility. There were 160 proposals nationwide for the NIST grant.

One of the abilities engineering and science students will now have is access to a "clean room."

"A clean room is a space in which air is filtered and purified," Sellmyer said. "If someone makes a small device in a non-clean room it will immediately obtain dust. If the dust gets between the layers of the object it will ruin the product."

The facility will also enable the creation of better nanomagnetic material that goes into making clean energy, electric motor cars and nanoparticles, which can be injected into cancer or tumor patients to help kill cancer cells.

Inside the facility are various tools that will help scientists with their research, such as a $2 million electron microscope.

Sellmyer said one of the most important benefits of the building is that it will provide equipment for students, faculty and researchers to use whereas an individual researcher or department would never have the funds to purchase such tools.

Sellmyer also anticipates that the facility will make UNL more competitive in the Big Ten, as six other schools in the conference have special centers for research and science materials, which are similar to UNL's new facility.

"The renovation of the Jorgensen Hall basement and of the new building will allow UNL to be far more competitive in the Big Ten and allow UNL researchers, students and staff to do things they only dreamed of doing before," Robertson said.

Mariciaguzman@dailynebraskan.com