A $12.4 million grant from the National Science Foundation (NSF) will establish a new high-rate nanomanufacturing research center at Northeastern.

The collaborative venture among Northeastern and some twenty academic and industrial partners propels the university into the upper echelon of academic institutions focusing on research related to nanotechnology.

The new Center for High-Rate Nanomanufacturing, aimed at developing methods to mass-produce molecule-sized products, will be one of only eight such centers in the United States. Similar operations are based at Harvard, Columbia, Cornell, and Northwestern. Northeastern's center, which will also assess the environmental, economic, regulatory, and ethical impacts of nanomanufacturing, will be led by Ahmed Busnaina, the William Lincoln Smith Professor of Engineering.

As it continues to expand and equip its facilities for nanotechnology research, Northeastern, which has served as two-time cohost of an international nanomanufacturing workshop, is ready to capitalize on nanotech's great potential.

With applications in everything from electronics, to textiles, to health care, nanotech products could command a $1 trillion market by 2015, according to the NSF.

Researchers already know how to make products at the nanoscale (a nanometer is one-billionth of a meter; a human hair is ten nanometers wide). But so far, no one has figured out how to mass-produce them. "You cannot commercialize anything if you can only assemble a few molecules at a time," explains Busnaina.

Nanotechnology could create breakthroughs in a wide variety of areas, such as computer design and cancer detection, according to Busnaina. It could pave the way for the creation of computers the size of business cards. Or flexible solar cells for use as roof shingles. Or mite-sized magnetic particles that could be directed to precise locations in the body to detect cancer or deliver drugs.

Participants in the new nanotech venture include faculty in engineering, physics, and chemistry with expertise in microfabrication, materials processing, sensor technology, and nanoscale materials physics, as well as researchers from Northeastern's three academic partners, the University of New Hampshire, the University of Massachusetts­Lowell, and Michigan State University. To date, thirteen industrial partners have also signed on.

As lead institution, Northeastern will receive $4.7 million from the NSF.

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