Nanotechnology in the United States is a guide to the latest nanotechnology initiatives from the world’s leading nanotech player.
The United States is the world’s leading public funder of nanotechnology and has provided over $16 billion in investment since 2001. The next stage will involve turning this base into nanotech products.
Nanotechnology in the United States
Now in its tenth year, federal agencies participating in the National Nanotechnology Initiative (NNI) spend approximately $2 billion per annum on nanotechnology R&D, having spent a cumulative $14 billion since the initiative’s inception through fiscal year 2011. The 2012 Federal Budget provides another $2.1billion for the NNI. Annual funding has increased from $464 million in 2001, and by around $500 from 2008.
The NNI today consists of the individual and cooperative nanotechnology-related activities of 25 Federal agencies with a range of research and regulatory roles and responsibilities. Fifteen of the participating agencies have R&D budgets that relate to nanotechnology. The initiative has funded over 7800 research projects, developed an extensive infrastructure of research centers and user facilities and established major networks for developing public awareness of nanotechnology though informal and formal educational programs.
Agencies with the largest investments in the 2012 NNI budget are:
• Department of Energy (research providing a basis for new and improved energy technologies)
• National Institutes of Health (nanotechnology-based biomedical research at the intersection of life sciences and the physical sciences)
• National Science Foundation (fundamental research across all disciplines of science and engineering)
• Department of Defense (science and engineering research advancing defense and dual-use capabilities)
• National Institute of Standards and Technology (fundamental research and development of measurement and fabrication tools, analytical methodologies, and metrology for nanotechnology)
Other agencies investing in mission-related research are the Consumer Product Safety Commission, Department of Transportation (including the Federal Highway Administration), Department of Justice, Environmental Protection Agency, National Aeronautics and Space Administration, National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health, and the U.S. Department of Agriculture (including the National Institute of Food and Agriculture, and the Forest Service). The proposed NNI budget by agency in 2012 is:
• Department of Defense (DOD): $388.2 million
• National Science Foundation (NSF): $455.9 million
• National Institutes of Health (HHS/NIH): $464.8 million
• Department of Energy (DOE): $610.6 million
• Department of Commerce/National Institute of Standards and Technology (DOC/NIST): $115.7 million
• National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA): $32.3 million
• Environmental Protection Agency (EPA): $19.8 million
• Department of Health and Human Services, National Institute of Occupational Safety and Health (HHS/NIOSH): $16.5 million
• Department of Health and Human Services/Food and Drug Administration (HHS/FDA): $15.0 million
• Department of Agriculture, National Institute of Food and Agriculture (USDA/NIFA): $11.6 million
• Department of Homeland Security (DHS): $10.2 million
• Department of Agriculture, Forest Service (USDA/FS): $5.0 million
• Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC): $2.0 million
• Department of Transportation/Federal Highway Administration (DOT/FHWA): $2.0 million
These investments are spread out over Program Component Areas (PCAs): the study of fundamental phenomena and processes (24%), nanomaterials (21%), nanoscale devices (27%), instrumentation research (4%), nanomanufacturing (6%), facilities (9%), environmental (6%), and education (3%). In FY2011 and again in the FY2012 budget, three signature initiatives were identified as deserving of increased R&D funding—nanotechnology for solar energy collection and conversion ($126 million in R&D funding in FY2012), sustainable nanomanufacturing ($84 million), and nanoelectronics for 2020 and beyond ($98 million). In the FY2011 initiative, the Semiconductor Research Corporation (SRC) joined with the NSF to announce $20 million in funding for nanoelectronics research. The goal of this research is to discover and develop a new switching mechanism using nanoelectronic innovations as a replacement for the current transistor.
Several Federal agencies also operate nanotechnology research facilities that are available to outside users. The U.S. Department of Energy operates five Nanoscale Science Research Centers (NSRCs) at the Center for Nanoscale Materials at Argonne National Laboratory, the Center for Functional Nanomaterials at Brookhaven National Laboratory, the Molecular Foundry at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, the Center for Nanophase Materials Sciences at Oak Ridge National Laboratory and the Center for Integrated Nanotechnologies at Sandia National Laboratories and Los Alamos National Laboratory. Other centers include the National Cancer Institute’s Nanotechnology Characterization Laboratory, the National Institute of Standards and Technology operates the Center for Nanoscale Science and Technology and the National Science Foundation supports two networks of user facilities, the National Nanotechnology Infrastructure Network (NNIN) and the Network for Computational Nanotechnology (NCN). Each is operated by a consortium of universities.
NNI-participating agencies have also established over 90 multidisciplinary research and education centers nationwide. These include:
• Department of Defence (DOD): Institute for Soldier Nanotechnologies, Center for Nanoscience Innovation for Defense, Naval Institute for Nanoscience and the DARPA Center on Nanoscale Science and Technology for Integrated Micro/Nano-Electromechanical Transducers (iMINT)
• National Institute of Health (NIH): Nanotechnology Characterization Laboratory, Nanomedicine Center for Nucleoprotein Machines, National Center for Design of Biomimetic Nanoconductors, Nanomedicine Center for Mechanobiology, Carolina Center of Cancer Nanotechnology Excellence, Center for Cancer Nanotechnology Excellence and Translation, Center for Cancer Nanotechnology Excellence at Johns Hopkins and Nanosystems Biology Cancer Center 2
• National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health: Nanotechnology Research Center
• National Institute of Standards and Technology (Department of Commerce): Center for Nanoscale Science and Technology
• NSF/EPA: Center for the Environmental Implications of NanoTechnology (CEINT) and UC CEIN Center for Environmental Implications of Nanotechnology (CEIN)
The National Science Foundation funds the largest number of centers. The Nanoscale Science and Engineering Centers (NSEC) include the Center for Hierarchical Manufacturing (University of Massachusetts—Amherst), the Center for Nanoscale Systems (Cornell University), Science of Nanoscale Systems and their Device Applications (Harvard University), the Center for Biological and Environmental Nanotechnology (Rice University), Center for Integrated Nanopatterning and Detection Technologies (Northwestern University), the Center for Electron Transport in Molecular Nanostructures (Columbia University), the Center for Directed Assembly of Nanostructures (Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute), the Center for Scalable and Integrated Nano-Manufacturing (University of California—Los Angeles), the Center for Chemical-Electrical-Mechanical Manufacturing Systems (University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign), the Center on Templated Synthesis and Assembly at the Nanoscale (University of Wisconsin), Center for Probing the Nanoscale (Stanford University), the Center for Affordable Nanoengineering of Polymeric Biomedical Devices (Ohio State University), the Center of Integrated Nanomechanical Systems (University of California—Berkeley), Nano-Bio Interface Center (University of Pennsylvania), Center for High Rate Nanomanufacturing (Northeastern University), the Center for Nanotechnology in Society (Arizona State University), the Center for Nanotechnology in Society (University of California—Santa Barbara) and the Societal Interactions Materials Research Science and Engineering Centers (MRSECs) that are fully dedicated to nanotechnology research, the Center for Nanoscale Science, the Center for Quantum and Spin Phenomena in Nanomagnetic Structures, the Center for Research on Interface Structure and Phenomena and Genetically Engineered Materials Center. There are also a number of additional MRSECs with one or more interdisciplinary research groups) focused on nanoscale science and engineering topics.
The NSF also funds the NSF Nanoscale Science and Engineering Networks that include the Network for Computational Nanotechnology, the National Nanotechnology Infrastructure Network, the Oklahoma Network for Nanostructured Materials, the Nanoscale Informal Science Education Network, the Network for Nanotechnology in Society and the Experimental Program to Stimulate Competitive Research
In March 2012, the President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology’s (PCAST) biennial review of the National Nanotechnology Initiative (NNI) presented its report reviewing the previous 10 years of the National Nanotechnology Initiative. They offered suggestions on how to improve the US’s competitiveness in nanotechnology. Major recommendations include focusing future funding on addressing nanomanufacturing and commercialization, moving nanotechnology into the market place, signature initiatives to address R&D gaps by aligning existing NNI agency research programs in topic areas that address critical national challenges and job creation.
In response to this the NNI met in December 2011 and highlighted how the NNI had addressed a number of their suggestions via an increase in the number of public-private partnerships (citing examples from the NIH and NIST), outreach to states (including a full-time employee dedicated to this effort), interactions with officials from the European Union, better information dissemination programs, and research on health, environmental, safety, ethical, and legal matters. NNI agencies will increase also their efforts to target and accelerate commercialization of sponsored research.
Therefore the next decade for the NNI will focus on fostering technology transfer with an emphasis on nanotechnology-based commercialization and related support for public-private partnerships. The time has come to move nanotechnology from the research field into tangible products.
Since 2005 there has been an increased investment in education and in research on ethical, legal, and other societal dimensions of nanotechnology and this investment totals more than $390 million since then. The federal government has issued a national strategy for ensuring that SH&E research needs are fully identified and addressed in the fast-growing field of nanotechnology. The 2011 National Nanotechnology Initiative (NNI) Environmental, Health and Safety Research Strategy provides an integrated research framework to guide federal agencies participating in the NNI. The strategy is designed to help NNI leverage federal resources and infrastructure to produce research data that can be used to protect public health and the environment, while continuing to fuel innovations and capture the value of those innovations.
The strategy identifies six core categories of research that together can contribute to the responsible development of nanotechnology: 1) nanomaterial measurement infrastructure; 2) human exposure assessment; 3) human health; 4) environment; 5) risk assessment and risk management; and 6) informatics and modelling. The strategy also aims to address the ethical, legal and societal implications of the technology.
The United States will continue to be the world’s greatest public funder of nanotechnology and nanomaterials R&D for the forseeable future. Europe and Japan come close to rivalling US public investment and in certain areas of research can claim to have the edge. However, the US has an enviable infrastructure and in the next decade could begin to pull away due to an increased emphasis on commercialization and nanomanufacturing.
With the infrastructure and research base in place the NNI will now seek to foster the transfer of nanotechnology into products and develop and sustain educational resources, create jobs and a skilled workforce and further built on what is already in place, in a responsible and sustainable way whilst addressing critical challenges. The next ten years promise to be even more interesting than the first ten.
Further reading on the National Nanotechnology Initiative (NNI):
• NSF National Nanotechnology Initiative website: www.nano.gov
• PCAST Conference Call on STEM Education Report on the NNI: www.whitehouse.gov/administration/eop/ostp/pcast/meetings/past
• NNI Budget FY 2012: www.nano.gov/about-nni/what/funding
• NNI Program Component Areas: www.nano.gov/nni-pca
• National Nanotechnology Initiative Strategic Plan: www.nano.gov/node/581
• Centers and networks: www.nano.gov/centers-networks
• User facilities: www.nano.gov/userfacilities
• Funding opportunities: www.nano.gov/initiatives/funding-opportunities
• Environmental, Health, and Safety Research Strategy: www.nano.gov/sites/default/files/pub_resource/nni_2011_ehs_research_strategy.pdf
