University hosted first Japan-U.S. nanotechnology symposium last week

By David Brand

Manipulating materials and devices at the ultrasmall level of one-millionth the size of a pinhead was the focus for three days at Cornell last week when 20 leading Japanese researchers, 20 U.S. researchers and five top officials from the National Science Foundation (NSF) held the first in a series of symposia on nanotechnology. The meetings will, among other things, discuss priority areas of research and attempt to develop technological standards to be adopted for the field.

Taking part in a session during the Japan-U.S. symposium on nanotechnology in the Statler Hotel Jan. 22 are, from left, Professor John Silcox, Cornell vice provost for physical sciences and engineering science; Tsuyoshi Maruyama, deputy director-general of the Office for Materials Research and Development for the Japanese Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology; and ministry official Naoko Okamura. Frank DiMeo/University Photography

Called the Japan-U.S. Symposium: Tools and Metrology for Nanotechnology, the meetings will be held twice a year alternately in the United States and Japan. It is not yet decided if Cornell will host future symposia. They parallel similar meetings that Japanese government officials and researchers have held with the United Kingdom and Asian nations.

The U.S.-Japanese symposia are sponsored by the NSF and MEXT (the Japanese Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology).

The Jan. 22-24 symposium at the Statler Hotel on campus, which attracted an audience of researchers from Cornell and across the United States, was hosted by the National Nanofabrication Users Network (NNUN), whose director is Sandip Tiwari, the L.B. Knight Director of the Cornell Nanoscale Science and Technology Facility (CNF). CNF is one of the five members of NNUN and a national user center funded by the NSF.

"Hopefully, we can do this for five years and exchange information," said Hiroshi Tokumoto of Hokkaido University, who worked with Tiwari in organizing the symposium. "You can always see publications, but our feeling was that if scientists and engineers who work in labs could meet face to face there would be a good exchange of information."

A very practical reason for engaging in close conversation with U.S. researchers was voiced by Tsuyoshi Maruyama, deputy director-general of MEXT: "We have to encourage curiosity-driven opportunities in the U.S."

He noted that Japan's nanotechnology research is overseen by MEXT and the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry. Although the funding support system is complicated, he said, "The advantage of the organization system is that there are two ministers in charge of science and technology, one in the cabinet office."

Among Japan's science and technology policy priorities are the promotion of basic research and research and development in areas that meets social needs, including life sciences, information and communications technology, environmental sciences and nanotechnology and materials. A third priority, he said, is encouraging emerging research areas.

The NSF's Esin Gulari, the agency's acting assistant director for engineering, noted how closely Japan's nanotechnology structure and investments match those in the United States. The NSF is the lead agency for the National Nanotechnology Initiative (NNI), which involves a total of 15 to 16 Washington departments and agencies. Fiscal 2002 funding for the NNI was $604 million, with a similar amount being donated by industry and about a further half of this amount from universities and foundations. "We are adding up to perhaps one-and-a-half times the Japanese investment. But if you compare the two countries, the investments are quite comparable," Gulari said.

In addition, she said, the NSF's NNI portfolio is focused on areas very similar to those of the Japanese. Usually the agency invests in three "modes," she said: small exploratory research projects; major investments in interdisciplinary research teams; and investments in research centers, of which six have been launched to date. "It is exciting to see physicists, biologists, materials scientists and engineers working as a team, and in real time advancing knowledge," she said.

Among the NSF's support areas, nanotechnology undergraduate education is a new theme this year, said Gulari. "We are finding that the nanoscale is fascinating for young people learning science and technology. They are learning science in its entirety, not just physics, biology or chemistry, but science," she said.

During the symposium, U.S. and Japanese researchers presented papers on standards, methodology and research in nanotechnology in the two countries. Among Cornell researchers participating were Héctor Abruña, the E.M. Chamot Professor of Chemistry and Chemical Biology, who spoke on single-molecule transistors; John Silcox, vice provost for physical sciences and engineering science, who spoke on scanning transmission electron microscopy approaches to problems on the nanoscale; and Michal Lipson, assistant professor of electrical and computer engineering, who spoke on the challenge of coupling light from fibers into nano-size optical waveguides.