University of Sydney Opens Nanoscale Technology Institute

The Australian Institute for Nanoscale Science and Technology (AINST) has opened on the campus of the University of Sydney, headquartered at the $150 million Sydney Neuroscience Hub.

“In AINST, we’ve brought together our expertise in physics, chemistry, engineering and the medical sciences, to work together in this amazing new building, so that our researchers and our students can devise, fabricate, test and deploy exciting new nanoscale science and technology that will change the world,” said professor Thomas Maschmeyer, founding director of AINST and an experimental chemist.

In addition to teaching laboratories, lecture theaters and collaborative work spaces for students, the new facility includes research laboratories and a clean room protected from physical, electronic and thermal interference. A research and prototype foundry allows the researchers to create their structures and devices without leaving the building, with a transmission electron microscope to see materials’ atomic structures.

Current technologies in development include unbreakable quantum communication and ultrahigh-speed wireless computing; houses and offices acting as huge batteries; steel-framed cars slimmed by 100 kg; efficient biofuel production; and real-time targeting of cancers.