Summer 2003 -- vol. 21, no. 2 logos home page Contact the logos editor Argonne home page Feature articles Three Argonne technologies win R&D 100 Awards Serendipity in lab turns blood into stem cells Cutting blood supply to tumors could stop them Argonne Update Access Grid aids SARS patients New clues found to Alzheimer's Disease. Survival skills for women program honored Illinois funds nanotechnology center

Illinois provides $17 million for nanocenter

The State of Illinois granted $17 million of its fiscal year 2003 budget toward construction of the

(CNM) at Argonne National Laboratory.

NANOCENTER — The Center for Nanoscale Materials will be connected to the Advanced Photon Source.

The CNM is one of five centers for nanoscale research being built at Department of Energy national laboratories. Expected to be completed in winter 2005-2006, CNM's building is to abut the Advanced Photon Source near a specially designed hard X-ray nanoprobe beamline that will permit scientists to study structures as small as 30 nanometers (30 billionths of a meter) in size, using advanced diffraction, spectroscopy and imaging techniques.

The payment is part of $36 million Illinois has pledged for construction of the center and clears the way for signing a final (Title II) design contract.

The balance of the state money is in Gov. Rod Blagojevich's 2004 budget, recently passed by the Illinois General Assembly. Completing the design is expected to take about five months. Then, bids will be sought, with construction expected to start in early spring of 2004.

The first $10 million of $36 million the Department of Energy plans to provide for the nanoprobe and CNM instrumentation is included in the proposed federal budget for fiscal year 2004, which begins Oct. 1.

The building, a two-story, 85,000-square-foot structure, will include offices, meeting rooms, clean rooms and laboratories for creating and studying nano-sized materials. The offices will accommodate about 130 CNM staff and users. Full-scale research at the center is expected to begin in 2007. — Rich Greb

For more information, please contact Rich Greb (630/252-5565 or rgreb@anl.gov) at Argonne.