MIT International Iberian Nanotechnology Laboratory (MIT-INL)

The International Iberian Nanotechnology Laboratory (INL) and MIT began a major new collaboration that will enrich each institution's research activities in nanoscience and nanotechnology in June 2009.

The two institutions created MIT-INL, a new education and research enterprise focusing on nanotechnology. The collaboration will create 10 senior research positions for scientists who will launch an aggressive new nanotechnology research agenda, and it will enable approximately $35 million (25 million euro) of new sponsored research with MIT in its first five years. José Rivas, director-general of INL, and Subra Suresh, dean of engineering at MIT, formalized the agreement at a signing ceremony in Lisbon.

This is the INL's first major alliance with an American academic institution. Conceived in 2005-06, founded in 2007, built in 2008-09 and opened in 2009, INL is an international research facility located in Braga, Portugal, and is a joint project of the governments of Portugal and Spain. The MIT-INL agreement leverages the Institute's especially strong reputation in materials science, engineering, nanotechnology and biotechnology.

As part of the first step in their collaboration, the organizers of MIT-INL have already selected a number of current MIT research projects, in the Microsystems Technology Laboratories (MTL) and the Materials Processing Center (MPC), to benefit from MIT-INL. These projects include research on nanoparticles that can selectively adsorb water contaminants, autonomous microsystems that can move around water supplies and sense contaminants (while sustaining themselves on power scavenged from their environments), new materials for energy storage, revolutionary tools and technologies for monitoring our food supply, and others.

There will be an Institute-wide call for additional proposals in the near future. MIT faculty will also play a key role in helping develop new capabilities at the INL facilities, and in the training programs for scientists and students on the MIT campus and at the INL. In addition, INL will immediately begin recruiting senior researchers to work in new applications and technologies in nanoscience and nanotechnology.

Professor Anantha Chandrakasan, director of the Microsystems Technology Laboratoties, will serve as MIT's inaugural director of MIT-INL; Professor Carl Thompson, director of the Materials Processing Center, will serve as co-director. They will work closely with Paulo Freitas, deputy director-general of INL.

As part of the first step in their collaboration, the organizers of MIT-INL have already selected a number of current MIT research projects, in the Microsystems Technology Laboratories and the Materials Processing Center, to benefit from MIT-INL. These projects include research on self-powered systems for autonomous sensing, graphene-based microsystems for environment and food-quality monitoring, complex molecular self-assembly routes to device fabrication, nanomaterial arrays for energy storage and sensing and nanoparticle engineering for environmental applications.
MIT faculty will also play a key role in helping develop new capabilities at the INL facilities, and in the training programs for scientists and students on the MIT campus and at the INL. The initial focus of the MIT-INL collaboration is the recruitment of approximately ten senior researchers, known as “INL-MIT Scientists,” who will be trained at MIT and then lead laboratories at INL. In addition, INL is recruiting senior researchers to work in new applications and technologies in nanoscience and nanotechnology.

One current overarching research objective of the MIT-INL collaboration is to develop microsystems that can operate indefinitely using energy scavenged from their environments. Such systems can address a range of applications -- from environmental sensing and food control, to smart packaging and medical devices. The materials and device technologies developed for these purposes will also create a foundation for a new generation of low-power, integrated circuit technology.