DoD awards funds for molecular, optical electronics research

from the light-stuff dept.
The U.S. Department of Defense has selected the Institute for Lasers, Photonics and Biophotonics at the University at Buffalo to lead a consortium in a five-year, $5 million effort to develop new materials in molecular electronics, photonics and opto-electronics. The consortium also includes researchers at Berkeley, MIT, Yale, and the University of Washington. The grant was awarded under the department's Defense University Research Initiative in Nanotechnology (DURINT) program. The researchers will focus on developing new materials on the molecular and nanometer scale, including theoretical modeling and chemical synthesis, characterization, device fabrication, and testing and integration of components into larger-scale systems. A prime focus is chemical self-assembly. One researcher will self-assembling DNA-templated assembly to organize photonic and electronic nanostructures. One goal is to use the DNA templates to produce nanowires and nanoarrays, which, attached to a substrate, would make up the integrated circuit component of a potential data-storage device.