Quadrennial Review of the National Nanotechnology Initiative (2025) Securing U.S. Global Leadership Through Renewed and Expanded Infrastructure (2025) / Chapter Skim
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This information, which should be maintained annually by NNCO, will enhance the visibility, availability, and impact of these assets. Recommendation 1.2: Within 2 years, Congress should reauthorize the National Nanotechnology Initiative as the National Nanotechnology Infrastructure and orient, with the appropriate funding, the National Nanotechnology Coordination Office and agency activity toward the renewal and expansion of infrastructure to serve existing and emerging nanotechnology research and development.
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Recommendation 4.5: All agencies that fund nanotechnology infrastructure should increase program funding or provide a competitive travel grant program to include dedicated travel support for users and, where feasible, summer access for academics, researchers, and students who are not from R1 institutions.
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is a quadrennial review of the National Nanotechnology Initiative (NNI) requested by the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy.
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The committee biographies are provided in Appendix D STUDY PROCESS AND DATA GATHERING The study was conducted over the course of approximately 9 months and consisted of a series of committee meetings, public data-gathering sessions, one town hall, and data requests to nanotechnology infrastructure facilities funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF)
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Goal 5. Ensure the responsible development of nanotechnology (Executive Office of the President, 2021, National Nanotechnology Initiative Strategic Plan, report of the Subcommittee on Nanoscale Science, Engineering, and Technology, Committee on Technology, of the National Science and Technology Council, October, https://www.nano.gov/sites/default/files/ pub_resource/NNI-2021-Strategic-Plan.pdf, pp.
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SOURCE: National Nanotechnology Coordination Office, n.d., "NNI Organizational Chart," https://www.nano. gov/node/1115, accessed May 2, 2025.
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nanotechnology research and the associated infrastructure of importance to this report. Some of this support is directly geared toward major user facilities, such as DOE's five Nanoscale Science Research Centers (NSRCs)
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Atomic resolution image of bilayer WS2 taken on an annular dark field scanning transmission electron microscope (ADF-STEM)
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The personal experiences of the committee members, borne out through interviews and presentations, underlined that often these kinds of collaborations occur at the specialized user facilities that form the core of the nanotechnology infrastructure. The intellectually diverse make-up of the user communities at several such facilities is illustrated in Figure 1-7b.
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16 Q ua d r e n n i a l R e v i e w o f t h e N N I ( 2 0 2 5 ) FIGURE 1-4 A semi-log plot of transistor counts for microprocessors against dates of introduction, nearly double every 2 years.
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• Chemistry, 2017, "for developing cryo-electron microscopy for the high resolution structure determination of biomolecules in solution." • Chemistry, 2023, "for the discovery and synthesis of quantum dots." • Chemistry, 2024, "for computational protein design." • Physiology or Medicine, 2023, "for their discoveries concerning nucleoside base modifications that enabled the development of effective mRNA vac cines against COVID-19." The nanotechnology research that led to these achievements was performed de cades before the prizes were awarded. Also notable is the breadth of disciplines that used or developed the nanotechnology research infrastructure to make these discoveries.
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Nanoscale Science Research Center (NSRC) and National Nanotechnology Coordinated Infrastructure (NNCI)
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Finding 1.3: Nanotechnology commercialization is quickly developing fol lowing research breakthroughs, and the United States has only just begun to experience the significant economic impact and job creation from its strategic investment in nanotechnology. Conclusion 1.1: The National Nanotechnology Coordination Office is critically important to the future of nanotechnology in U.S.
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Notably in almost all cases these facilities have in the past received federal agency support for major equipment or are the legacy of prior investments in nanotechnology or materials research centers. Major research universities with PhD programs in engineering are very likely to have nanotechnology facilities.
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, Argonne National Laboratory, Lemont, IL Center for Functional Nanomaterials (CFN) , Brookhaven National Laboratory, Upton, NY Molecular Foundry, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Berkeley, CA Center for Nanophase Materials Sciences (CNMS)
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is not useful for transpor tation, a tool, such as an aberration-corrected electron microscope, is not useful for basic nanotechnology research unless it has associated technical staff. From its inception, the NNI has recognized that the nanotechnology infrastructure should provide not only cutting-edge tools but also associated world-class experts to develop the tools and educate users.
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Additionally, in any experimental research environment, physical space is at a premium, and keeping shared space for nanotechnology infrastructure available is an ongoing challenge for any facility. For nanotechnology infrastructure -- whether it is supported by national, regional, or increasingly uni versity entities, or as is increasingly common a mix of all of these -- it is important to recognize its true footprint, which extends beyond the instruments themselves as follows: Nanotechnology Infrastructure = Tools + People + Space Funding for Nanotechnology In general, basic research in the United States is funded by a combination of federal, industrial (business)
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support the bulk of the nanotechnology infrastructure budget (Figure 1-12)
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, adapted from "The N ational Nanotechnology Initiative Supplement to the President's 2024 Budget," https://www.nano.gov/sites/default/files/ pub_resource/NNI-FY24-Budget-Supplement.pdf. to repair and replace aging equipment, such as the recent Major Items of Equipment project from DOE.13,14 13 Berkeley Lab Molecular Foundry News, 2021, "Nanoscale Science Research Centers Recapitalization Project Reaches ‘CD-1' Status," April 28, https://foundry.lbl.gov/2021/04/28/mie-cd1.
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, 2024, "The National Nanotechnology Initiative Supplement to the President's 2024 Budget," https://www.nano.gov/sites/ default/files/pub_resource/NNI-FY24-Budget-Supplement.pdf. While DOE has modestly increased its nanotechnology infrastructure budget since 2020, NSF has reduced its investment over the same time period (Figure 1-12)
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, 2024, "The National Nanotechnology Initiative Supplement to the President's 2024 Budget," https://www.nano.gov/sites/default/files/ pub_resource/NNI-FY24-Budget-Supplement.pdf. operations, and training.
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WHO IS USING THE INFRASTRUCTURE? Only two of the national nanotechnology infrastructure networks, funded by NSF and DOE, require that their facilities report usage data.
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2021; $406 million of this was from the federal government (Figure 1-1-1) .a The principle local nanotechnology resource at UIUC is the Materials Research Laboratory (MRL)
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