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Introduction: What Is the Nation’s Nanotechnology Infrastructure?

STUDY BACKGROUND AND COMMITTEE TASK AND SCOPE OF WORK

This report of the Committee on the Quadrennial Review of the National Nanotechnology Initiative (2025) is a quadrennial review of the National Nanotechnology Initiative (NNI) requested by the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy. The National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine have delivered reviews of the NNI in 2002, 2006, 2009, 2013, 2016, and 2020. These reviews were mandated by 15 U.S.C. Section 7504, originally enacted in 2003 as the 21st Century Nanotechnology Research and Development Act (P.L. 108-153), which called for triennial reviews by the National Research Council¹ of the NNI efforts. Section 204(d) of the American Innovation and Competitiveness Act (P.L. 114-329) changed this reporting period to quadrennial, so that the most recent report prior to this one was due and submitted to Congress in 2020.

The current review focuses on the composition of the science and engineering community currently being served by the nation’s nanotechnology research and development (R&D) infrastructure, and it also identifies barriers to use for communities who are not fully engaging with this infrastructure. The full statement of task can be found in Appendix A.

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¹ Effective July 1, 2015, the institution is called the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. References in this report to the National Research Council are used in an historic context identifying programs prior to July 1, 2015.

For this review, the National Academies appointed the committee of 13 members with expertise in nanotechnology; materials science and engineering; research management; technology development; technology insertion; manufacturing processes and management; national security; and national user facility experience, education, training and re-training, environment, health and safety, risk assessment, and economics. 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) and the Department of Energy (DOE). During this time, the committee held 14 public information-gathering sessions for the committee to deliberate and develop its findings, conclusions, and recommendations.

REPORT STRUCTURE

The report is divided into five chapters to address the statement of task. Chapter 1 describes what nanotechnology is, defines the statement of task and the nanotechnology research infrastructure, describes where the nanotechnology research infrastructure is located, and provides snapshots regarding the users and costs of the infrastructure. Chapter 2 addresses the opportunities and barriers for sustaining and coordinating U.S. global leadership in nanotechnology with respect to its infrastructure. Chapter 3 examines trends, opportunities, and emerging use cases in nanotechnology R&D infrastructure. Chapter 4 uncovers the barriers to use for communities that are not fully engaging with the nanotechnology research infrastructure. Chapter 5 provides a conclusion and list of the recommendations that each chapter developed from its findings and conclusions.

SHAPING THE CONTEXT FOR NANOTECHNOLOGY INFRASTRUCTURE

Fundamental and applied research in nanotechnology, including infrastructure, in the United States has a profound connection to the NNI. The NNI is a federal R&D initiative that “works together toward the shared vision of a future in which the ability to understand and control matter at the nanoscale leads to ongoing revolutions in technology and industry that benefit society.”² The NNI was proposed by President Clinton in 2000 and codified in law in 2003 with President Bush’s

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² National Nanotechnology Initiative (NNI), n.d., “About the NNI,” https://www.nano.gov/about-nni, accessed June 3, 2024.

signing of the 21st Century Nanotechnology Research and Development Act. By bringing together broad agency expertise on nanotechnology and providing a framework for shared goals,³ priorities, and strategies, the NNI enables agencies to coordinate on developing U.S. leadership in nanotechnology research while leveraging their complementary resources and knowledge.

An important feature of this legislation is that it did not form a new agency to fund nanotechnology research. Rather, the law conceived of the NNI as a means to connect and influence R&D funded by existing federal agencies. As a result, the act dictates that support for the NNI should be drawn from each agency’s existing budget. This approach is also reflected in educational practices for training nanotechnology experts as well; there are few “nanotechnology” bachelor’s, master’s, and PhD programs in the United States. Instead, students develop their knowledge in nanotechnology while receiving degrees in traditional disciplines, such as engineering, physics, chemistry, materials science, and the life sciences.

The broad scope of nanotechnology is inherent in its definition. The topic refers to the study and application of unique phenomena at approximately the 1–100 nm scale, corresponding to matter with ten to thousands of atoms.⁴ As will be described in Chapters 2 and 3, this focus on physical scale makes nanotechnology highly relevant for many existing and emerging research disciplines. As a result, there are a wide array of federal agencies that support nanotechnology. Their work is governed by the interagency Nanoscale Science, Engineering, and Technology (NSET) Subcommittee of the National Science and Technology Council Committee on Technology (Figure 1-1). It is comprised of representatives from the major participating agencies in the NNI. The National Nanotechnology Coordination Office (NNCO) provides technical and administrative support to the NSET, which

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³ The President’s Budget Supplement points to the goals of the NNI in the 2021 NNI Strategic Plan:

Goal 1. Ensure that the United States remains a world leader in nanotechnology research and development.

Goal 2. Promote commercialization of nanotechnology R&D.

Goal 3. Provide the infrastructure to sustainably support nanotechnology research, development, and deployment.

Goal 4. Engage the public and expand the nanotechnology workforce.

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. 2–3).

⁴ F.C. Klaessig, 2017, “Nanotechnology Definitions at ISO and ASTM International: Origin, Usage, and Relationship to Nomenclature and Regulatory and Metrology Activities,” in Metrology and Standardization of Nanotechnology, D.L. Kaiser E. Mansfield, D. Fujita, and M. Van de Voorde, eds.

helps to manage U.S.-funded nanotechnology research. Further information on the structure and operating principles of the NNI and NNCO can be found in past National Academies’ reviews of the initiative.^5,6

The NNCO also gathers data annually from its agency partners to provide a national snapshot of U.S. government investments in this critical area. These resources support much, but not all, U.S. 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). NSF also supports nanotechnology R&D infrastructure through the National Nanotechnology Coordinated Infrastructure (NNCI) and user facility sites located at 16 different higher-education locations, as well as at various non-NNCI affiliated universities. Instrumentation within shared facilities can also be acquired through other programs at NSF, the National Institutes of Health (NIH), the National Institute of Standards and Technology, or the Department of Defense. Additionally, states have in some cases supported nanotechnology infrastructure relevant for their region’s economic interests. Also notable are shared facilities at R1 research universities. While these university-supported facilities may not label themselves as nanotechnology infrastructure per se, they are often open to users outside of their campuses and are important elements of the U.S. nanotechnology infrastructure.

INCREASING RELEVANCE OF NANOTECHNOLOGY

According to the NNI, nanotechnology is defined as “the understanding and control of matter at the nanoscale, at dimensions between approximately 1 and 100 nanometers, where unique phenomena enable novel material applications.”⁷ The emergent properties of nanoscale or nanostructured materials make possible technologies that would have been unthinkable with conventional “bulk” materials. Since the early 2000s, a myriad of commercial products using nanotechnology have touched every corner of human activity and benefited society. Nanotechnology is now a fact of daily life. As will be discussed further in Chapter 3, its applications have revolutionized a wide range of areas such as microelectronics, biomedicine, homeland security, environmental science, energy production and harvesting, transportation, agriculture, and food security.

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⁵ National Research Council, 2013, Triennial Review of the National Nanotechnology Initiative, The National Academies Press, https://doi.org/10.17226/18271.

⁶ National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, 2020, A Quadrennial Review of the National Nanotechnology Initiative: Nanoscience, Applications, and Commercialization, The National Academies Press, https://doi.org/10.17226/25729.

⁷ NNI, n.d., “About Nanotechnology,” https://www.nano.gov/about-nanotechnology, accessed October 4, 2024.

All these scientific and technological advances hinge on a vast network of nanotechnology infrastructure. Its critical capabilities, instrumentation, and human expertise are essential for the continuous advancement of nanoscale science and technology. Since the start of the NNI, instrumentation for the characterization and manipulation of matter at the nanoscale has been central for all advancements. For example, improvements in electron microscopy have enabled measurements at the atomic scale (Figure 1-2) while nanoscale fabrication methods have enabled devices with new capabilities (Figure 1-3). For example, these advancements over time have greatly improved the number of transistors capable of fitting on a chip (Figure 1-4). Large-scale industrial manufacturing of computer chips would not be possible without early-stage investment in fabrication and measurement techniques; and, of course, the students who use NNI facilities now are the industrial workers of the future.

Nanotechnology, while no longer an emerging scientific area, has become even more relevant to the United States through its acceleration of innovation, economic development, and job creation in different sectors. Fundamental and applied nanotechnology research, which is the starting point for innovation, continues to grow

(Figure 1-5) as measured by the number of relevant “nano” publications weighted by all papers in the Scopus database. The rapid growth between 2004 and 2009 reflects the impact of the NNI legislation signed into law in 2003. While the growth rate of nanotechnology publications has slowed, there is still an upward trend in the amount of “nano-work” being shared in research literature.

Moreover, no single area can claim sole ownership of nanotechnology because its impact has been felt broadly in the research enterprise (Figure 1-6). This is evident in classifications of nanotechnology publications by subject area (Figure 1-7a); no single discipline is overrepresented. Instead, nanotechnology is catalyzed and developed through the crosspollination of different intellectual perspectives. 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.

Unlike other coordinated federal investments in emerging areas of research, continued U.S. investment in nanotechnology is particularly vulnerable going forward. There is no single agency or scientific discipline that will alone advocate for its future in the competitive landscape for federal research dollars.

Nanotechnology’s groundbreaking scientific impact is also reflected in the following Nobel Prizes that used key ideas, capabilities, and infrastructures of nanotechnology⁸:

• Physics, 2007, “for the discovery of giant magnetoresistance,” which revolutionized magnetic storage.
• Physics, 2010, “for groundbreaking experiments regarding the two-dimensional material graphene,” with diverse uses.
• Physics, 2014, “for the invention of efficient blue light-emitting diodes which enabled bright and energy-saving white light sources.”
• Chemistry, 2016, “for the design and synthesis of molecular machines.”

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⁸ The Nobel Prize, 2025, “All Nobel Prizes,” https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/lists/all-nobel-prizes.

• 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 vaccines against COVID-19.”

The nanotechnology research that led to these achievements was performed decades before the prizes were awarded. Also notable is the breadth of disciplines that used or developed the nanotechnology research infrastructure to make these discoveries.

Nanotechnology has had and continues to have a significant economic impact on both U.S. and global economies. Indeed, the NNI’s assessment of “data from the 2017 Economic Census revealed that over 3,700 companies—with over 171,000 employees—self-identified as primarily being in the business of Nanotechnology R&D” and that “these companies reported $42 billion in revenue” in 2017.⁹ A

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⁹ M. Kiley, 2022, “Impact of the NNI on the U.S. Economy: At Least $42 Billion in One Year!,” November 28, https://www.nano.gov/node/5257.

recent independent study commissioned by the NNI noted the aggregated revenues of nanotechnology companies from 2002 to 2022 to be close to a trillion dollars, which represents a significant economic output considering that the U.S. government investment was around $40 billion in the same timeframe.¹⁰

Finding 1.1: Nanotechnology is essential to numerous scientific disciplines and relevant to the missions of multiple federal agencies. Its interdisciplinary nature and broad impact means that there is no single home among the various science and engineering communities, nor is it predominantly overseen by any single government agency.

Finding 1.2: Nanotechnology research has worldwide impact currently, and its importance will grow as its materials, methods, and infrastructure advances.

Finding 1.3: Nanotechnology commercialization is quickly developing following 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. technological competitiveness.

WHAT AND WHERE IS THE U.S. NANOTECHNOLOGY INFRASTRUCTURE?

The development of nanoscale science and technology commonly requires expensive equipment and specialized expertise located in dedicated facilities that are, by their nature, expensive to run and maintain. These include, for instance, specialized cleanroom laboratories with low-particle environments housing dedicated lithographic, nanofabrication, and characterization equipment; dedicated electron microscopes with increasingly powerful capabilities; and nanomaterial characterization and synthesis facilities, including those for automated experimentation. One of the pillars of the NNI was the creation and support of a “network of shared infrastructure programs that are funded by several federal agencies and make research capabilities available to the broader community of researchers from academia, government, and industry.”¹¹

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¹⁰ The Parnin Group, 2023, “Economic Impact Analysis: 20 Years of Nanotechnology Investments,” https://parningroup.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/11/NSF-Economic-Impact-Analysis_Report_ForDistribution.pdf.

¹¹ NNI, n.d., “NNI R&D User Facilities,” https://www.nano.gov/userfacilities, accessed September 5, 2024.

In 2025, the federally supported NNI national infrastructure of nanoscale science user facilities open to researchers consists of five NSRCs supported by DOE; an NNCI supported by NSF, consisting of 16 university sites; the Center for Nanoscale Science and Technology operated by the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) and supported by the Department of Commerce (DOC); and the National Cancer Institute’s Nanotechnology Characterization Laboratory, supported by NIH under the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS; see Table 1-1, Figure 1-8). Beyond the infrastructure supported at the federal level by the NNI, nanotechnology facilities and resources at the regional and state level are relatively rare, but one example is California’s NanoSystems Institute.¹²

Much more common are capabilities and facilities at the university level to support research on their campuses. The collective user base for these local facilities is considerable and, as a result, the infrastructure for nanotechnology R&D is far larger than the federally supported facilities (NNCI, NSRCs) would suggest. 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. For these examples, the operations are available to external academic users often at the same rate as internal users, and many of these university facilities welcome corporate users as well. The committee was not able to find comprehensive lists of such infrastructure, but as an example, the major universities listed in Table 1-2 have their own facilities that collectively appear to support thousands of users per year with hundreds of nanotechnology-relevant tools and dozens of staff members.

The committee realized that it may be challenging for a researcher to identify and locate specific capabilities or instrumentation within the existing patchwork of nanotechnology infrastructure. There is no single source of information combining all of the capabilities of the nation’s nanotechnology infrastructure. At the federal level, potential users have to consult separate websites listing different nanotechnology facilities with different access requirements and protocols. At the regional and local level, information can be even harder to find. Perhaps the best effort in this direction is the NNCI website that provides listings and a search option for tools available within the NSF-supported NNCI network.

Finding 1.5: There is no single source of information on where particular infrastructure resources are located.

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¹² California NanoSystems Institute, n.d., “California NanoSystems Institute,” https://cnsi.ucla.edu/about-us, accessed August 2, 2024.

TABLE 1-1 National Nanotechnology User Facilities That Are Part of the National Nanotechnology Initiative, Supported and Organized by Federal Funding Agency

Conclusion 1.2: There is a need for a single and comprehensive source of information on what nanotechnology infrastructure is available for shared use and where these resources are located.

Technical Staff as Part of the Infrastructure

Just as a car without a driver (human or machine) is not useful for transportation, 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. Human talent brings essential knowledge and expertise, provides hands-on training and development, and facilitates education and transfer of knowledge as well as ensuring the continuous and long-term operation of critical instrumentation. During the committee’s information-gathering

TABLE 1-2 Examples of Major Research Universities with Their Own Nanotechnology Facilities That Are Not Part of the NNCI

processes, which included a town hall, invited speakers, and user comments, a singular message from all stakeholders was the importance of human talent, including support for the people who use and operate the infrastructure in the resources for infrastructure. 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 university 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), higher education, and philanthropic/other organizations (second bar in Figure 1-9). Nanotechnology is no exception, with its funding coming from a variety of federal, state, and local resources.

Federal funding of the NNI over time is displayed in Figure 1-10. The different colors in this “mountain plot” correspond to the contributions from federal agencies. The black curve corresponds to the percentage of the NNI funding allocated to “research infrastructure and instrumentation” (i.e., Program Component Area 3, or PCA 3). This proportion has stayed relatively constant since 2006 and represents about 11 percent of the total budget of the NNI as shown in Figure 1-11 according to the proposed 2024 President’s NNI Budget. Figure 1-12 shows the breakout for “infrastructure and instrumentation” over time per government agency. Four government agencies (DOE, NSF, DOC, and HHS) support the bulk of the nanotechnology infrastructure budget (Figure 1-12).

The committee learned that “infrastructure” does not have a standard definition. The DOE numbers in Figure 1-12, for example, represent the total cost of running the five NSRCs, including operating costs such as staff salaries, utilities, maintenance, and service contracts, leaving little room for recapitalization costs. The NSRCs dedicate only about 10 percent of their annual budget ($3 million to $5 million for each NSRC) for capital equipment. This limited allocation makes it necessary to supplement recapitalization efforts with additional sources of funding

to repair and replace aging equipment, such as the recent Major Items of Equipment project from DOE.^13,14

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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.

¹⁴ Department of Energy, 2025, “Project Dashboard—January 2025, POST CD-2 Active Projects,” Office of Project Management, January, https://www.energy.gov/sites/default/files/2025-02/January%202025%20PM%20Project%20Dashboard.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). NSF’s decreasing contribution ($24.5 million in fiscal year [FY] 2024) is largely taken up by the 16 NNCI sites, which each receive about $1 million. Their main role is nanotechnology education, outreach, and research. The committee noted with concern that it is not possible for any of the NNCI sites to purchase a new major piece of equipment with NSF support alone. As an example, a state-of-the-art transmission electron microscope (TEM) costs $3 million to $4 million; the institution that purchases such a TEM can easily spend $100,000 to $500,000 on room renovations to house it; a service contract for the instrument would cost $200,000 to $300,000 per year; and at least one half-time staff person would be required for maintenance,

operations, and training. As a result, the NSF investment in the NNCI sites alone cannot renew the physical infrastructure.

Infrastructure funding comes from other sources in addition to the federal government. Nanotechnology facilities and resources at the state and regional (e.g., crossing several states) level are relatively rare, but one example is California’s NanoSystems Institute. Much more common are investments that individual universities make to support research on their campuses. For state universities, of course, there may be general funding from the state that academic leaders may direct to support technical facilities of all kinds; at private universities, the central research office is generally involved with oversight and management of nanotechnology facilities, given their broad utility. The collective user base for these local facilities is considerable, and thus the infrastructure for nanotechnology R&D is far larger than the federally funded examples (NNCI, NSRCs) would suggest.

However, while these are university-operated resources, they in almost all cases owe their existence to federal funding and continue to seek partial support for new tool purchase through federal major equipment grants. As an example, a university that wishes to hire an electron microscopist will purchase a state-of-the-art electron microscope using a mix of funds that may include indirect cost recovery from federal grants, philanthropic sources, or new federal funds specific to instrument purchases. Box 1-1 describes funding at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign Materials Research Laboratory.

Additionally, industry and the private sector invest substantially in nanotechnology R&D, especially in development, and the committee describes many examples of the co-investment of federal and industry funding throughout the report, especially in Chapter 3 concerning emerging use cases and critical and emerging technologies.

Finding 1.6: The nation’s nanotechnology infrastructure comprises the sum of people, tools, and space for facilities.

Finding 1.7: Maintenance costs for major equipment and labor are part of the U.S. nanotechnology infrastructure.

Finding 1.8: There are presently four main agencies (NSF, DOE, DOC, NIH) that support the U.S. nanotechnology infrastructure at the federal level. This is a priority recommendation.

Recommendation 1.1: In the coming year, the National Nanotechnology Coordinating Office (NNCO) should conduct a census of accessible nanotechnology infrastructure sites (instruments, staff, facilities) and display findings on a public, web-accessible map that includes university, regional, and national resources. This information, which should be maintained annually by NNCO, will enhance the visibility, availability, and impact of these assets.

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. Each use different metrics, which reflect their different missions, making comparisons between the two networks difficult (Table 1-3).

Nonetheless, data from the NNCI (NSF) sites and NSRCs (DOE sites) is instructive. Table 1-4 shows the total number of unique users for the 16 NNCI sites over a 7-year period—nearly 11,000 to more than 13,000 from 2015 through 2022.

TABLE 1-3 Statistics Collected by the National Science Foundation (NSF) and the Department of Energy (DOE) for Their Nanotechnology User Facilities

SOURCE: Data from National Nanotechnology Coordinated Infrastructure, 2024, NNCI Coordinating Office Annual Report (Year 8), adapted from Table 13, NNCI Coordinating Office, and R.L. Rodd, 2024, DOE Data Days 2023 Report, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory.

Each year, the NNCI sites train 4,000–5,000 new users. The average number of users per site, then, has increased 22 percent over time. This is in the same range as the DOE NSRCs (Table 1-5).

In terms of the type of user, the NNCI sites also provide data on types of users. Figure 1-13 shows the affiliation of these users in FY 2022. Nearly 75 percent of the users are local; yet the user base is quite broad. These NNCI-wide users came from 233 U.S. academic institutions, 562 small companies, 189 large companies, 17 government offices, and 37 international institutions. These NNCI users in FY 2022 spanned a large range of disciplines, as demonstrated in Figure 1-14.

Thus, a broad range of disciplines make use of nanoscale research facilities, from electronics to geology to medicine.

The committee endeavored to learn how users become aware of relevant facilities as this informs analyses related to expanding access, the subject of Chapter 4. Awareness might be measured, for a given nanotechnology resource, in how many visits its webpage receives, or how many email inquiries its staff receives, over a given time. Mechanisms for access to facilities varies broadly across the country. The NSRCs, for example, do not charge for usage, but potential users have to write a proposal that may or may not be approved. NNCI and other facilities charge users

TABLE 1-4 Data from the 8th National Nanotechnology Coordinated Infrastructure Annual Conference

SOURCE: Data from National Nanotechnology Coordinated Infrastructure (NNCI), 2023, “8th Annual NNCI Conference at Stanford University,” Presented at the 8th Annual NNCI Conference at Stanford University, Stanford University, October 25–27, https://nnci.net/sites/default/files/inline-files/NNCI%20CO%20Overview%20Oct%202023.pdf.

TABLE 1-5 Number of Users at Each of the Five Department of Energy Nanoscale Science Research Centers in Fiscal Year (FY) 2024

SOURCE: Data submitted by facilities.

a fee for service without requiring a formal proposal. In these cases, users may have a wait time depending on the availability of equipment or staff. Opportunity of access depends on facility time and user funding; most user facilities do not cover the costs of travel and lodging at the site, and users have to take time off to visit and collect data at the site.

The NNCI surveyed its users in FY 2022.¹⁵ It received 970 responses; 67 percent of these were affiliated with the NNCI site, 11 percent were academics not at the NNCI site, and 19 percent were from industry. These data show that users of infrastructure are mostly drawn from local affiliations, at least at the NNCI sites. When asked, “How did you find out about the NNCI facilities?” the top five answers, in order, were as follows:

1. Current/former user
2. Referral from users
3. University website
4. Web search
5. Direct contact by facility

The DOE NSRCs do not charge for usage, unlike the NSF-funded NNCI; instead, users write a proposal which undergoes an internal feasibility review and an external peer review by a board or subject-matter experts. As an example, The Molecular Foundry (Foundry) reported in its FY 2025 strategic plan that in FY 2023 it received 609 user proposals (11 percent from industry), of which 80 percent were accepted. A total of 1,090 users were served (792 onsite and 298 remote), plus an additional 439 co-proposers, for a total of 1,529 researchers served.¹⁶ These projects led to 316 subsequent publications, of which 52 percent were in high-impact journals (impact factor [IF] > 7, as defined by DOE). The Foundry in this strategic plan states that 800–1,000 annual users is approximately the maximum it can handle, given the size of the staff and physical facility. This plan also states that “every couple of years, the user program and communications staff work closely to analyze proposal submissions and identify populations, geographic regions, and institutions that might benefit from targeted outreach and support.” As a result, Foundry staff attend conferences and undertake outreach efforts to local institutions in the California State University system.

As another example, the Center for Nanoscale Materials (CNM) at Argonne National Laboratory (Figure 1-15) reports that 53 percent of its users are U.S. academics, while Argonne non-CNM researchers are 27 percent with 5 percent from

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¹⁵ National Nanotechnology Coordinated Infrastructure, 2023, “8th Annual NNCI Conference,” https://nnci.net/sites/default/files/inline-files/NNCI%20CO%20Overview%20Oct%202023.pdf.

¹⁶ Molecular Foundry, 2024, “Five-Year Strategic Plan FY2025,” https://foundry.lbl.gov.

industry. The breadth of disciplines served by the CNM is also large, with materials science, engineering, and physics the largest groups.

Finding 1.9: Users of nanotechnology infrastructure tend to come from the local area of where the infrastructure is located.

Finding 1.10: Users of nanotechnology infrastructure are most likely to learn of a facility from other users; a secondary source is the university or organization’s website or a search of the web; a tertiary source is outreach from the facility itself.

THE INTENTIONAL EVOLUTION OF THE NATIONAL NANOTECHNOLOGY INITIATIVE

The U.S. nanotechnology infrastructure is at a critical juncture two decades after the launch of the NNI. Recommendation 1 in a recent President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology report was that “the President work with Congress to sunset or substantially revise the 21st Century Nanotechnology Research

and Development Act.”¹⁷ Now is not the time to “sunset” this legislation or curtail the blossoming commercial relevance of nanotechnology and limit the many benefits the nation will realize from its years of strategic investment. Now is the time to renew the commitment to this vital and cross-cutting area of research and explore how the government may support it during its new phase of development. Nanotechnology is everywhere—smartphones, computers, medical diagnostics—and many more products are on the horizon. The nanotechnology infrastructure that supports such innovation requires tending, maintenance, and improvements.

Nanotechnology infrastructure and its importance have only grown as nanotechnology has developed. The increasing number of infrastructure users (e.g., Table 1-4, showing a 22 percent increase over 6 years, in spite of the pandemic), shows that nanotechnology infrastructure is of increasing necessity to the scientific community, which includes large and small companies. While the COVID-19 pandemic made workplaces more versatile with remote activities, lessons from nanotechnology facilities underlined the limitations with respect to infrastructure access. While this trend has its benefits, as discussed in Chapter 4, the importance of in-person and hands-on training for research infrastructures is only more evident post-pandemic.

While federal investment in this area 20 years ago was driven by nanotechnology’s intellectual novelty and technological promise, renewed support for its infrastructure will ensure its ongoing commercial relevance in different sectors enabled by nanoscale science and technology. This importance has only been highlighted since the 2020 NNI quadrennial review.¹⁸ The global COVID-19 pandemic led to the unprecedented and rapid deployment of nanotechnology on a vast scale far beyond the narrow confines of the research laboratory as many of the most successful COVID-19 vaccines were enabled by nanotechnology.¹⁹ These life-saving nanoparticles, which consisted of an mRNA/lipid formulation, could never have been invented, much less produced at scale, without the foundational knowledge of nanotechnology, biotechnology, and nanomedicine. At-home COVID-19 tests use lateral flow assays containing gold nanoparticles that offer shelf-stable and reliable results in the form of pink lines; the pink color comes from the optical properties of nanoscale gold particles. It is expected that real-world applications will follow on from research discoveries, and the past two decades of nanotechnology discoveries are now fueling entirely new solutions to global problems.

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¹⁷ President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology, 2023, “The Seventh Assessment of the National Nanotechnology Initiative,” https://bidenwhitehouse.archives.gov/wp-content/uploads/2023/08/PCAST_NNI_Review_August2023.pdf.

¹⁸ NASEM, 2020, A Quadrennial Review of the National Nanotechnology Initiative: Nanoscience, Applications, and Commercialization, The National Academies Press, https://doi.org/10.17226/25729.

¹⁹ R. Tenchov, R. Bird, A.E. Curtze, and Q. Zhou, 2021, “Lipid Nanoparticles—From Liposomes to mRNA Vaccine Delivery, a Landscape of Research Diversity and Advancement,” ACS Nano 15(11):16982–17015.

Also critical is that the nanotechnology infrastructure be expanded to support its growing relevance to emerging use cases (e.g., biotechnology, semiconductors, agriculture, quantum, and energy) as is discussed in more depth in Chapter 3. The U.S. government made large federal investments in manufacturing, such as the CHIPS and Science Act. The more homegrown and modern semiconductor manufacturing sector envisioned in this legislation deeply depends on nanotechnology. Novel capabilities in shaping chips are enabled by new tools and technologies such as extreme ultraviolet lithography that prints 12-nm linewidth structures in the so-called “3 nm technology node, N3.” This will soon require 8-nm features in the upcoming technology nodes.²⁰ New phenomena in quantum science (e.g., the electronic properties of twisted bilayer graphene) have come to the fore as well, which led to the National Quantum Initiative. It is important to note that these new initiatives have leveraged and continue to build upon the nanotechnology infrastructure capabilities and expertise of the NNI user facilities. Without the infrastructure network supported by the NNI, these new efforts and future ones would not be possible. Topics which were considered fringe have now risen to importance; one example is the convergence of nanotechnology with agriculture, leading to potential improvements in crop yields and food security.

Just as strong federal support for the original NNI helped make the United States the global leader and beneficiary of nanotechnology, continuing federal support and coordination of its next chapter will also guarantee its ongoing impact. The United States stands to gain an enormous amount from the evolution of this now vital research area. While the United States remains strong in nanotechnology, Chapter 2 explores current U.S. competitiveness in this field. The NNI itself and the power of legislation in science and technology for the nation is clear. Its success has inspired many newer legislative initiatives. NIH’s Brain Initiative is one example, and broader multi-agency activities centered on quantum science (the National Quantum Initiative) and artificial intelligence are others; being new, these exemplify the hallmarks of a true initiative and capture attention and enthusiasm. After 20 years, nanotechnology is no longer an emerging area. It is also not a topic that can be readily absorbed and sustained by one scientific or engineering discipline; it crosses over between chemistry, physics, engineering, biology, medicine, and more. This strength makes its future precarious without evolving coordination and structures that cross agencies and conventional academic boundaries. Legislative action can again ensure that nanotechnology’s connections to many science and engineering disciplines keep growing and that a full complement of federal agencies both oversee and benefit from nanotechnology’s ongoing development. Turning

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²⁰ International Roadmap for Devices and Systems, 2022, “Lithography,” Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers.

attention toward preservation and renewal of the heavily used and relevant research infrastructure is a logical and important focus for this next stage.

What was once specialized and cutting-edge knowledge known to a small academic community is now a central commodity accessed by nearly all researchers with impacts felt across nearly every discipline and industrial sector.

Finding 1.11: Research and development related to nanotechnology is increasing over time and has contributed positively to society.

Finding 1.12: The successful cross-agency model used for the National Nanotechnology Initiative has been replicated in other emerging areas of research.

Finding 1.13: Every year, thousands of academic and industry researchers use the nanotechnology infrastructure.

Finding 1.14: Nanofabrication and nanocharacterization infrastructure are essential to support academic and industry research that can advance critical and emerging technology areas like quantum information science and technology, microelectronics, biotechnology, advanced manufacturing, and artificial intelligence.

This is a priority recommendation.

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.