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July
18, 2003
Energy
Secretary Spencer Abraham Breaks Ground On Nation's
First Nanoscale & Nanotechnology Research
Facility at Oak Ridge National Lab
OAK RIDGE, TENN. -- Secretary of Energy Spencer
Abraham today broke ground on the Center for Nanophase
Materials Sciences (CNMS) at the Oak Ridge National
Lab, a $65 million dollar research and development
facility dedicated to the study of nanoscale research.
The Oak Ridge facility will be the first of five
Energy Department centers.
“This facility will assist scientists in
reaching new frontiers in the study of nanoscale
research and its practical application,”
Secretary Abraham said, presiding over the groundbreaking
for the new center. “It represents a beginning
of a revolution in science, opening up a broad
array of innovation in materials science, biology,
medicine, technologies for environmental research
and national security.”
“Nanoscale research will, in many respects,
represent the new building blocks for new technologies
and applications across the science and industry
spectrum. Understanding the properties of materials
on the tiniest scale will have an impact on everything
from medicine to manufacturing,” Abraham
said. “Oak Ridge is blessed with tremendous
research resources from the computational science
center to the CNMS and the Spallation Neutron
Source. I’m confident that this lab and
its facilities will continue to lead the way in
scientific research.”
The five centers are part of the department’s
contribution to the National Nanoscience Initiative,
part of the Bush administration’s broad-based
science initiative.
Abraham was joined at the groundbreaking by: U.S.
Senator Lamar Alexander; Dr. Raymond L. Orbach,
Director of DOE’s Office of Science; Dr.
Bill Madia, Director of Oak Ridge National Lab;
Dr. Carl Kohrt, Battelle President; Dr. John Shumaker,
University of Tennessee President; and Gerald
Boyd, DOE Oak Ridge Operations Office manager.
The CNMS will be a world-class, one-of-a kind
facility for the fabrication and characterization
of materials on the nanoscale. The 80,000-square
foot facility is scheduled for completion of construction
and initial operation in spring 2004, with all
equipment and research technology installed and
operational by September 2006.
The center will be a national user facility for
nanoscale research, serving up to 300 scientists
annually from universities, industries, and federal
laboratories. The Oak Ridge facility will be built
adjacent to the department’s Spallation
Neutron Source, thus providing researchers ready
access to the world’s most powerful neutron
source for samples analysis and characterization
of nanoscale research.
The University of Tennessee, partner with the
Battelle Foundation in managing the department’s
Oak Ridge National Lab, is investing $2.5 million
in a nanoscale research and education center that
will complement the CNMS. They will be developing
unique analytical equipment for atomic-scale characterization.
The new center at ORNL is a Department of Energy
Office of Science Nanoscale Science Research Center
(NSRC) operating as a highly collaborative and
multidisciplinary user research facility. The
center is one of five DOE NSRCs that form an integrated,
national network. Each NSRC is associated with
other major national research facilities at one
of DOE’s National Laboratories, enabling
their application to nanoscale science and technology.
Other department facilities for nanophase research
will be located at the department’s Argonne,
Berkeley, Brookhaven, and Sandia/Los Alamos national
labs.
What is Nanoscale Research?
Nanomaterials -- typically on the scale of billionths
of a meter or 1,000 times smaller than a human
hair -- offer different chemical and physical
properties than the same materials in bulk form,
and have the potential to form the basis of new
technologies. Understanding these properties may
allow researchers to design materials with properties
tailored to specific needs such as strong, lightweight
materials, new lubricants and more efficient solar
energy cells. By building structures one atom
at a time, the materials may have enhanced mechanical,
optical, electrical or catalytic properties.
The fundamental properties of materials and systems
are established at the nanoscale. Melting temperature,
magnetic properties, charge capacity, and even
color are dictated not only by the arrangement
of nanoscale structures, but also by the size
of the structures. The realm of molecular biology
-- life sciences -- also operates largely at the
nanoscale.
Scientists have known about the physical properties
and behavior of isolated molecules and bulk materials.
The properties of matter at the nanoscale, however
cannot necessarily be predicted from those observed
at larger or smaller scales. Nanoscale research
enables scientists literally to build novel structures
atom by atom.
The CNMS, housed next to the department’s
Spallation Neutron Source (SNS), will afford unique
opportunities to utilize the SNS in the fundamental
research ongoing at the CNMS.
The main CNMS building will comprise both wet
and dry laboratories, as well as areas for collaboration
and communication from the various users of the
facility. The 10,000-square-foot Nanofabrication
Research Laboratory, house in a one-level wing
of the building, will include clean rooms and
an area designed to meet the requirements of electron-beam
imaging and writing instruments like low electro-magnetic
field, low vibration and low acoustic noise.
The Nanomaterials Theory Institute will provide
collaborative workspaces, visualization equipment,
and high-speed connections to the terascale computing
facilities at Oak Ridge National Lab’s Center
for Computational Sciences.
Additional information on the CNMS is available
at: http://www.cnms.ornl.gov
Media Contact(s):
Joe Davis or Jeff Sherwood, 202/586-4940
Billy Stair, 865/574-4160
Number: R-03-158
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