Boost to nanobiology, nanoelectronics research

Centre's nod to set up three centres

Research in nanoelectronics and nanobiology is set to receive a major thrust this year with the Union government approving the establishment of world-class research and development centres at Chandigarh, Mumbai and Bangalore.

Besides the plan to set up a nanobiology institute at Chandigarh, two centres that would focus on nanoelectronics are on the cards this year. A joint proposal earlier made by the Indian Institute of Technology, Bombay (IITB), and the Indian Institute of Science (IISc), Bangalore, to establish research and development centres in nanoelectronics at these two institutes has been approved by the Union government.

Speaking to Business Standard, R Chidambaram, principal scientific advisor to the Government of India and former chairman, Atomic Energy Commission, said, "The joint proposal has been recently approved by the government. Work has commenced and the centres would be ready in two to three years."

The centres, to be established at a cost of Rs 100 crore, would deal with the fabrication and characterisation of chips, he said. Chidambaram was here to deliver a public lecture at the recently concluded Indian Science Congress.

Setting up of a national nanotechnology institute with the focus on nanobiology at Chandigarh was part of the seven-point agenda laid down for the year 2006 by Kapil Sibal, Union minister of state for science and technology and ocean development, at the inaugural session of this year's Indian Science Congress.

The establishment of the institute is part of a larger plan to establish clusters for developing linkages between industry and research and the Chandigarh centre has been planned to be the first such international cluster.

In the the nanoworld one essentially manipulates with things (say chips) and elements (say a few atoms) of the order of a nanometre (a billionth of a metre).

This completely different behaviour of an element from its original properties, say a metal, when dissected to perform operations at the nano or atomic level, is what ticks nanoresearch.

Though the nanofield is highly sophisticated and competitive with experiments becoming very demanding, highly impressive accomplishments present possible breakthroughs in materials and manufacturing, medicine and healthcare and electronics.