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It's Not Just About Materials

Larry Bell

We are reaching a limit in the future growth of computing power using current technologies because of the heat generated by packing more and more transisters onto tiny electronic chips. Nanotechnology may provide totally new techniques for computing that would solve this problem. Nanoelectronics is one of the signature intiatives identified in the National Nanotechnology Initiative strategic plan recently developed by the Office of Science and Technology Policy.

A research solicitation deadline is coming up on January 19 – Nanoelectronics for 2020 and Beyond (NSF 10-614) and there will surely be continued work in this area in the years to come. This research is being supported both by the NSF and by the semiconductor industry’s Nanoelectronics Research Initiative (NRI). Some of this research may be going on in your regions and you might be interested in collaborating with these researchers in some way.

Even before this new funding is awarded, there are several research groups already supported by NRI, as shown in the map below, an image from a presentation at NSF’s Nanoscale Science and Engineering Grantee Meeting on December 6, 2010, by Sanjay Banerjee, Director of SWAN NRI Center.

NRI-Funded Universities