A big new home for the ultrasmall
Nanotechnology, the cutting-edge research field that explores ultrasmall materials, organisms, and devices, has now been graced with the largest, most sophisticated, and most accessible university research facility of its kind in the U.S.: It is the new $400 million MIT.nano building, which will have its official opening ceremonies next week. The state-of-the-art facility includes two large floors of connected clean-room spaces that are open to view from the outside and available for use by an extraordinary number and variety of researchers across the Institute. It also features a whole floor of undergraduate chemistry teaching labs, and an ultrastable basement level dedicated to electron microscopes and other exquisitely sensitive imaging and measurement tools. “In recent decades, we have gained the ability to see into the nanoscale with breathtaking precision. This insight has led to the development of tools and instruments that allow us to design and manipulate matter like nature does, atom by...