From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Waterloo Institute for Nanotechnology
Waterloo Institute for Nanotechnology
Executive Director Arthur Carty, PhD, FRSC, OC for exploring areas of nanotechnology and nano-scale
sciences.[3].
Managing Director Alain Francq, MBA
Affiliation University of Waterloo
Advanced Micro-Nano Lab
The Advanced Micro-Nano Lab will address the following
Location Waterloo, Ontario
device technologies[4].
1. Micro/Nanoelectromechanical Systems (MEMS/
The Waterloo Institute for Nanotechnology (WIN) is lo-
NEMS): micro-optics, electromechanical wireless
cated at the University of Waterloo and is co-located with
components, and biomedical & microfluidics devices.
the Institute for Quantum Computing in The Mike and
2. Carbon Nanotube devices, eventually targetting
Ophelia Lazaridis Quantum-Nano Centre (QNC). WIN is
biomedical applications.
headed by Dr. Arthur Carty, former National Research
Council President and National Science Advisor.
The Waterloo Institute for Nanotechnology compris- Research interests
es faculty from eight different departments in the facul-
ties of Science and Engineering. Nano-Engineered Materials
Research in nano-engineered materials includes many
Major Research Facilities departments and Faculties at Waterloo. Researchers in
Chemistry, Chemical Engineering, Mechanical and
The Quantum-Nano centre is the site of a community lab-
Mechatronics Engineering, and Electrical and Computer
oratory for nano-metrology and nano-fabrication. Con-
Engineering are collaborating on modeling, design, fabri-
struction began on June 9, 2008 and is expected to be
cation, processing, characterization and analysis of nano-
completed early in 2011. The 160 million dollar,
scale properties of materials, structures, devices and sys-
284,000-square-foot (26,400 m2) facility will be the home
tems. This development will be further driven by the
to a 17,000-square-foot (1,600 m2) laboratory.
need to address a critical issue also faced in the integra-
tion of nano-scale devices: the interface between nano-
Funding structured materials and the macroscopic world.
Capital funding for construction of the QNC was made
possible by major gifts and awards from multiple sources Nano-Engineered Materials Projects
including a 101 million dollar donation from Ophelia and • Development and characterization of ferromagnetic
Mike Lazaridis (co-CEO of Research in Motion and Chan- iron-particles as drug delivery vehicles. These
cellor of the University of Waterloo). Government fund- particles act like tiny magnets, and can be directed
ing includes 17.9 million dollars from the Canada Founda- to specific areas of the body by an external magnetic
tion for Innovation (CFI) which has been matched by the field. These magnetic nanoparticles can also be used
Province of Ontario[1]. In addition, an anonymous donor to purify enzymes, proteins and to remove organic
has provided an endowment of 29 million dollars for 3 contaminants from waste water systems.
endowed chairs and 42 Graduate Nanofellowships[1]. • The design, synthesis, characterization, application
and fundamental studies of new crystalline metal
Laboratories oxide nano-materials that may be used for next-
generation rechargeable batteries.
Giga to Nano Electronics Laboratory • Nano-engineering of polymer electrolyte
G2N is a fabrication laboratory that integrates a range of membranes. Hydrogen fuel cells use these
thin-film manufacturing, assembly, testing, and charac- membranes to combine hydrogen and oxygen and
terization equipment to create electronic systems in the produce energy.
very large (a few billion pixels) and very small (a few • Development of nano-particles as powerful catalysts
nanometres) size range [2]. for petrochemical refinery applications.
• Basic and applied research in photonic and photonic
WATLab band gap crystals for optical and microwave
WATlab is a nano-materials metrology research facility, communications.
equipped with surface and nano-materials research tools
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From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Waterloo Institute for Nanotechnology
• Design, synthesis, fundamental understanding and • Organic synthesis, characterization and application
processing of polymer nano-composites, which are of molecular organic semiconductor materials for
used in several applications for the automotive, electronic/optoelectronic devices. These materials
aerospace, electronic components and packaging are uniquely positioned to allow low cost fabrication
industries. processes (e.g., printable electronics) and to enable
• Nanostructured materials for energy storage and novel applications, such as, flexible- and molecular-
conversion electronics.
• Synthesis of electoactive nanomaterials • X-ray detectors
• Bulk production of nanomaterials • Terahertz detectors and sources
• Nanopowders, nanotubes, nanowires • Imagers
• Novel Process • Ultrasensitive sensors
• CVD, crystallization laser ablation • Spintronic device design and fabrication
• Polymer nanocomposites • Nanolithography
• Flexible transistors/electronics • Nano-joining
• Coatings/catalysts • Direct bandgap nanowires for solar cells
• Nano biomaterials • Quantum photovoltaic devices
• Nano materials for imaging • Advanced CAD tool development and application to
• Novel spintronic materials emerging devices and sensors
Nano-Electronics Design and Fabrica- Nano-Instrumentation
tion Techniques to fabricate new instrumentation to charac-
Developing techniques to integrate NEMS/CMOS (Nano terize critical parameters such as size, composition, stiff-
Electro Mechanical Systems/Complementary Metal Ox- ness, surface characteristics, dopant concentration, mag-
ide Semiconductor) to develop manipulators with atomic netic coercivity, and other properties of particular inter-
precision in all three dimensions with on-chip control. est to the nano scale. Due to their small size, nano-sys-
Example applications include: scanning probe mi- tems are extremely challenging to assemble, and yet pre-
croscopy, atomic force microscopy, nano-materials char- cise control of their parameters is often critical to their
acterization and atomic resolution imaging with the ob- performance. A related goal is to cause a paradigm shift
jective of developing technologies for precision nano- in classical chemical measurements (in which samples
scale assembly and manufacturing. are brought to the lab for analysis) by developing wire-
less, energy-efficient mobile nano-instruments that al-
Nano-fabrication Projects low users to bring the lab to the sample. Examples of “the
• Fundamental and applied research into flexible, lab” include nano-instruments of all types and two ex-
transparent electronics; that is, electronics amples of “the sample” include the environment or a pa-
embedded on a mechanically flexible substrate such tient. The metrology arm of the new labs will be used to
as plastic, rather than on traditional and brittle ones study measurements at the nano-scale, to develop new
such as silicon. and unique nano-scale measuring instruments, and to
• Experimentation in electron beam lithography, to calibrate such instruments. It will also address associated
fabricate nanostructures and nanoelectronic devices, challenges involved in fabricating, integrating and pack-
and to determine how the arrangement of molecules aging instruments at the nano-scale.
affects the chemical properties of substances. ’’’====Nano-scale Metrology Projects====
====Nano-scale
• Fundamental studies and development of • Fundamental studies leading to development of
nanocrystalline thin-film semiconductors, devices theories behind measurements at the nano-scale.
and circuits for electronics and spintronics. • Fabrication of instrumentation and development of
• Development and fabrication of micro- and nano- methodology for micro- and nano-analytical
electro mechanical systems (MEMS/NEMS). New chemistry for measurements of pollutants on-site.
devices being researched include NEMS-based • Using micro as an interface between the nano-scale
metamaterials, miniature signal processing devices, and the macroscopic, human-scale.
biomedical, diagnostic and image processing devices, • Development and characterization of mobile micro-
tiny wireless components (filters, mixers, antennas), and nano- instruments that are small, cheap and
miniature opto-electromechanical devices (optical under wireless control.
relays, optical multiplexers, deformable optics), • Measurement of how nano-materials grow and form
miniature biosensors and environmental sensors, on surfaces.
and micro- and nano-fluidics devices.
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From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Waterloo Institute for Nanotechnology
• Studies of polymer interfaces, adhesion and • Development of nanotech methods for therapeutic
confinement of polymer chains glass transition in applications, for example, for replacing faulty DNA
confined geometries. or RNA strands with corrected strands.
• Characterization and modeling of mechanical • Fundamental and applied research into how certain
behaviour, fatigue properties, toughness and fluid- peptides self-assemble into nano-structures, which
dynamics of advanced materials as dimensions will increase understanding of certain neurological
shrink. diseases, and may subsequently lead to novel
• Nanoelectromechanical systems (NEMS) treatment methods.
• Nano-packaging • Development of polymeric nanostructures from self-
• Nano-micro interface technology assembly block copolymers for delivery of drugs,
• Nanofluidic devices proteins and DNA.
• Advanced CAD- electromechanical systems • Application of nanotech research into flexible
• Development of novel cooling technologies for nano electronics to create low-dose, portable, “wrap-
devices/high density circuits around” x-ray machines.
• E-Beam epitaxy • Development of nano-techniques for inactivation of
• Nano-sampling techniques microbes: an efficient and cheap method of food
• Nano-metrology sterilization.
• Creation of “nanowires” based on a chain-link
Nano-Biosystems arrangement of ferritin structures.
Nano-bio is a field that includes both the use of nan- • Interfacing nano-chips to bio-molecules.
otechnology in biological and agri-food systems and uti- • Using micro-arrays for high-throughput screening
lization of biological or bio-mimetic techniques in nan- and developing printable arrays.
otechnology. Nano-biotechnology shows a tremendous • Nanomedicine
promise of improving the quality of life. For example, • Gene therapy
nano-vehicles might deliver drugs directly to targeted • Polymeric nanostructures
cells, nano-membranes may be used for development of • Implantable nano-enabled devices
cheap, effective water purification systems, or nano- • Sensors for food quality monitoring[5]
[6]
chips that interface neurons with electronics may be-
come common place. Additionally, NEMS (nano-elec-
tro¬mechanical systems) might use sensors and physical Collaborations and Partner-
controls to stabilize individuals with heart, kidney or liv-
er disease. As nanotechnology researchers strive to cre- ships
ate self-assembling devices, they are beginning to exploit Nanotechnology research at Waterloo has national and
natural self-assemblers: proteins, DNA and viruses. Ex- international scope through collaboration and partner-
amples also include development of food quality mon- ships with:
itoring sensors and microfluidic biosensor compo- • College of NanoScale Science and Engineering,
nents.Nanoscale imaging of biological systems helps to Albany, New York
understand the nanoscale structure-function relation- • IIT, Bombay, India
ship of materials and in evaluating the food quality-func- • Canadian Centre for Electron Microscopy, Hamilton,
tion information. Characterization of nanoscale frag- Ontario
ments of biomaterials such as DNA, proteins, chromo- • NRC Institute for Microstructural Sciences
somes, plant cells, bacteria, starch granules and anti-al- • National Institute for Nanotechnology, Edmonton,
lergens are extremely important. Alberta
• Canada Foundation for Innovation
Nano-bio Projects
• Ministry of Research and Innovation [7]
• Lab-on-a-chip applications, such as DNA-chips and
pharmacy-on-a-chip.
• Creation of nano-vehicles that mimic the way viruses References
interact with specific cells. This will facilitate the [1] ^ University of Waterloo Quantum-Nano Fact Sheet
delivery of drugs directly to targeted cells, and [2] to Nano Electronics Laboratory
could, for instance, eliminate the toxic side-effects of [3] WATLab
chemotherapy by directing the therapeutic agents to [4] Advanced Micro/Nano-Devices Lab
cancer cells only. [5] Neethirajan, S., M.S. Freund, C. Shafai, D.S. Jayas
and D.J. Thomson. 2009. Development of CO2
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From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Waterloo Institute for Nanotechnology
sensor for agri-food industry (US Provisional
Patent US2009-61/238,91).
External links
[6] Ontario’s World-Class Quantum-Nanotechnology • Waterloo Institute for Nanotechnology
Research Centre at the University of Waterloo, • University of Waterloo Main Website
Alain Francq, University of Waterloo • Institute for Quantum Computing
[7] The Complete Specturm of Nanotechnology • Advanced Micro/Nano-Devices Lab
Education, Research, Facilities and Partnerships for • Nanotechnology Engineering at the University of
a World Class Nanotechnology Centre, Power Point, Waterloo
Alain Francq, University of Waterloo • to Nano Electronics Laboratory
Coordinates: 43°28′17″N 80°32′31″W / 43.4715°N
80.5420°W / 43.4715; -80.5420
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