GA Tech Getting Nanotechnology Research Center

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Georgia Tech gets $36M for Nanotechnology Research Center

Mary Jane Credeur

Staff Writer

Georgia Tech will soon have its very own nanotechnology research and development center thanks to a $36 million pledge from an anonymous donor.

Gov. Sonny Perdue announced the new center on Oct. 21 as part of the Georgia Technology Celebration event at the Cobb Galleria. Perdue said the new center will put Georgia in strong competition with other major technology research institutions such as MIT, Stanford, Cornell, Purdue, The University of Illinois and UC Berkeley.

"We must begin now researching how materials behave at the atomic level, because nanotechnology will have a significant impact on every product we manufacture in Georgia," Perdue said. "This time, we are not going to chase the wave -- we are going to help make the wave."

Nanotechnology can be used to help make better materials, such as eye glasses with glass fibers woven so tightly that they never need cleaning, stain-resistant clothing and storage devices the size of a sugar cube capable of storing all of the contents of the Library of Congress.

The Nanotechnology Research Center will be built as early as next year but will not officially open for three years, said Wayne Clough, president of Georgia Tech. It will be in the middle of the university's campus where the old nuclear reactor building now stands. Among the center's features will be a "clean room," a room free of microscopic particles that interrupt nanotechnology research.

Perdue said he would recommend to the General Assembly that they commit a "strongly supportive state match in the coming years," to help build the center.

Clough said Georgia Tech officials had been thinking about a project like this for several years.