UNM Collaborates on NSF Nanoscale Manufacturing Research Center

Steve Brueck

The Uni­ver­sity of New Mex­ico will par­tic­i­pate along with the Uni­ver­sity of Texas at Austin, the lead insti­tu­tion, and the Uni­ver­sity of Cal­i­for­nia Berke­ley on an $18.5 mil­lion, multi-year National Sci­ence Foun­da­tion grant to develop nanoscale man­u­fac­tur­ing sys­tems for mobile computing.

The Nanoman­u­fac­tur­ing Sys­tems for Mobile Com­put­ing and Mobile Energy Tech­nolo­gies (NASCENT) Cen­ter will develop inno­v­a­tive nanoman­u­fac­tur­ing, nanosculpt­ing and nanometrol­ogy sys­tems that could lead to ver­sa­tile mobile com­put­ing devices such as wear­able sen­sors, fold­able lap­tops and rol­lable batteries.

The UNM activ­i­ties will be led by UNM Dis­tin­guished Pro­fes­sor of Elec­tri­cal and Com­puter Engi­neer­ing, and direc­tor of the Cen­ter for High Tech­nol­ogy Mate­ri­als Steven R.J. Brueck.  A test­bed for nanoman­u­fac­tur­ing metrol­ogy will be built at CHTM on UNM’s south cam­pus.  Brueck’s role in the cen­ter will be to estab­lish the metrol­ogy or ways to mon­i­tor in near real time the prod­ucts of nanoman­u­fac­tur­ing tools.

“UNM is excited to be part of this Nanoscale Engi­neer­ing Research Cen­ter, “said Brueck.  “CHTM has a long his­tory of con­tri­bu­tions to mea­sure­ment tech­nolo­gies for the semi­con­duc­tor indus­try and oth­ers.  This is the fourth active ERC that UNM is par­tic­i­pat­ing in, and the third at CHTM.  There are only twenty active cen­ters nation­wide.  Very few other schools have achieved this level of par­tic­i­pa­tion in these pres­ti­gious, highly com­pet­i­tive awards.”

P. Ran­dall Schunk, a National Lab­o­ra­tory Pro­fes­sor from the Depart­ment of Chem­i­cal and Nuclear Engi­neer­ing at UNM will coor­di­nate and inte­grate mod­els at all scales of the nanoman­u­fac­tur­ing test beds.  Mod­els include mechan­ics of roll to roll pro­cess­ing of nanoim­print lith­o­g­ra­phy, graphene trans­fer and related tasks.  He will work with Pro­fes­sor J. Murthy at UT Austin.

In addi­tion, Asst. Pro­fes­sor of Elec­tri­cal and Com­puter Engi­neer­ing Olga Lavrova will pro­vide nanoscale device mod­el­ing and simulation.

These new tech­nolo­gies will pro­vide break­through per­for­mance in energy effi­ciency, com­put­ing, com­mu­ni­ca­tions and data/energy stor­age capac­ity.  Today, 40 per­cent of the energy used in cell­phones is for read­ing and writ­ing data to the phone’s mem­ory.  Researchers work­ing with the cen­ter will develop emerg­ing man­u­fac­tur­ing tech­nolo­gies to reduce energy needed for cell­phone mem­ory stor­age by up to three-quarters, while increas­ing data stor­age den­sity by more than five times its cur­rent capacity.

The cen­ter will also work toward devel­op­ing sil­i­con nanowires for improved anodes in lithium ion bat­ter­ies.  The nanowires are pro­jected to lead to a four­fold increase in the stor­age capac­ity of batteries.

“This grant is tes­ti­mony to the research accom­plish­ments and national com­pet­i­tive­ness of our fac­ulty,” says UNM Pres­i­dent Robert Frank. “Mobile devices play such a big role in all of our lives now and our stu­dents will have an oppor­tu­nity to par­tic­i­pate in cut­ting edge research that will impact their future development.”

A recent report from the World Bank says there will soon be more mobile sub­scrip­tions than there are peo­ple in the world. Several indus­try part­ners par­tic­i­pat­ing in NASCENT include Texas Instru­ments, 3M, Lock­heed Mar­tin, Applied Mate­ri­als and Corn­ing Inc. among others. The award will also pro­vide oppor­tu­ni­ties for out­reach into K-12 edu­ca­tion and research expe­ri­ences for UNM under­grad­u­ate students.

Media con­tact: Karen Went­worth (505) 277‑5627; email: kwent2@unm.edu