NNCI: Northwest Nanotechnology Infrastructure (NWNI)

西北纳米技术基础设施（NWNI）作为一个NNCI站点，为纳米技术研究人员和工程师提供了从太平洋海岸到蒙大拿州、从俄勒冈州南部到加拿大边境等广大地理区域的主要资源。NWNI在西雅图的华盛顿大学（UW）和科瓦利斯的俄勒冈州立大学（OSU）拥有世界一流的设施，并在能源部西北太平洋国家实验室和加拿大温哥华的不列颠哥伦比亚大学拥有独特的能力。该网站位于华盛顿大学，为大量分布的用户群提供关键的主力工具、独特的仪器和关键的教育支持，特别关注清洁能源和生物技术领域。NWNI的使命包括四个核心服务，可以用四个M来描述：制造-测量-模型-导师。前三个“M”构成了物理基础，第四个“M”用于协调教育工作，其广泛影响超出了科学界。物理基础设施包括用于制造的华盛顿纳米制造设施（WNF，西雅图）和微产品突破研究所（MBI, Corvallis），用于测量的分子分析设施（MAF，西雅图）和材料合成与表征设施（MaSC，俄勒冈），以及用于设计和分析建模的分布式计算资源。辅导对西北大学至关重要。该网站与该地区充满活力的生物技术和创业社区的整合意味着用户的巨大多样性。NWNI为其设施提供灵活的访问，从对当地用户的综合培训到操作员辅助工具访问，再到远程执行任务。无论是新手还是经验丰富的工程师或科学家，无论是本科生、研究生、博士后还是社区大学的学生或教师，所有用户都可以从最初的设计到最终的分析，为他们的整个纳米技术项目提供支持。NWNI是一个基础广泛的纳米技术资源，尽管该站点将在三个主要研究重点领域中发挥领导作用：(i)集成光子学，旨在实现大规模光子网络，有望克服当前电子电路的速度和带宽限制。除了信息处理之外，医疗设备中光子学的小型化和集成化正在促进新的微创健康诊断的发展；先进能源材料和设备，其目的是为清洁能源解决办法提供科学和工程基础，包括为太阳能创造更好的电池或可扩展和无害环境的材料；（iii）生物纳米接口和系统，为发明和展示生物医学应用的新设备提供基础设施和专业知识，使蛋白质建模、药物输送、传感器、生物支架和生物电子学取得进展。NWNI在材料和器件方面的能力，包括量子点，太阳能电池的超级吸收剂和用于传感器和显示器的柔性电子器件的氧化基晶体管，从而在纳米技术领域形成了全面的基础设施和专业知识，被认为是该领域独一无二的。该网站提供了一系列面向广大受众的教育活动，旨在产生乘数效应。提供三个标志性的住宿项目：(i)教育工作者在K-12课程的教学中获得动手实验技能；（ii）驻校企业家，与西澳大学技术转让（CoMotion）协调，与纳米技术发明者合作，探索创业机会；（iii）俄勒冈州立大学优势将企业与教师专业知识、学生才能和世界一流的西北西北大学研究所设施联系起来，以帮助将创意推向市场。在与英属哥伦比亚大学的合作中，在线edX课程被支持，允许全国各地和世界各地的学生在华盛顿大学用电子束光刻技术制造的多项目晶圆上构建和测试他们自己的纳米级光子器件。在全球范围内，华盛顿大学参与了一个由美洲、亚洲和欧洲的15个机构组成的网络，这些机构为未来的全球工程师提供纳米技术的联合暑期学校。

The Northwest Nanotechnology Infrastructure (NWNI) as a NNCI site serves as the prime resource for nanotechnology researchers and engineers for a large geographical area from the Pacific Coast to Montana and from southern Oregon to the Canadian border and beyond. NWNI offers world-class facilities at the University of Washington (UW) in Seattle and Oregon State University (OSU) in Corvallis, complemented with unique capabilities at Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, a Department of Energy site, and the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, Canada. Anchored at the UW, this site provides critical workhorse tools, unique instruments and key educational support to a large and distributed user base with particular attention to the clean energy and biotechnology fields. The mission of NWNI consists of four core services that can be described by four M's: Make - Measure - Model - Mentor. The first three M's form the physical foundation and the fourth serves to coordinate educational efforts with broad impact beyond the scientific community. The physical infrastructure consists of the Washington Nanofabrication Facility (WNF, Seattle) and the Microproducts Breakthrough Institute (MBI, Corvallis) for making, the Molecular Analysis Facility (MAF, Seattle) and the Materials Synthesis & Characterization Facility (MaSC, Oregon) for measuring, and distributed computational resources for modeling in design and analysis. Mentoring is essential to NWNI. The site's integration with the region's vibrant biotech and startup community implies immense diversity in users. NWNI offers flexible access to its facilities, from comprehensive training of local users to operator-assisted tool access to remote execution of assignments. Whether novice or seasoned engineer or scientist, whether undergraduate, graduate, postdoc or community college student or teacher, all users are offered support for their entire nanotechnology project from initial design to final analysis.The NWNI serves as a broad-based nanotechnology resource, though three principal research focus areas are highlighted in which the site will provide leadership: (i) Integrated Photonics, which aims at enabling large-scale photonic networks, which are expected to overcome current limits in speed and bandwidth of electronic circuits. Beyond information processing, the miniaturization and integration of photonics in medical devices is facilitating the development of new, minimally invasive health diagnostics; (ii) Advanced Energy Materials and Devices, which aims at providing the scientific and engineering basis for clean energy solutions, including the creation of better batteries or scalable and environmentally benign materials for solar power; and (iii) Bio-Nano Interfaces and Systems, which provides the infrastructure and expertise for inventing and demonstrating new devices for biomedical applications, enabling advances in protein modeling, drug delivery, sensors, bio-scaffolds and bioelectronics. NWNI features capabilities in materials and devices including quantum dots, super absorbers for solar cells and oxide-base transistors for flexible electronics for sensors and displays, resulting in comprehensive infrastructure and expertise in nanotechnology that is considered unique within the field. The site provides an array of educational activities geared towards a broad audience and designed to have a multiplier effect. Three signature residence programs are offered: (i) Educators-in-residence gain hands-on laboratory skills for use in teaching their K-12 classes; (ii) Entrepreneurs-in-residence, in coordination with UW Technology Transfer (CoMotion), work with nanotechnology inventors to explore start-up opportunities; and (iii) OSU Advantage connect businesses with faculty expertise, student talent and world-class NWNI facilities to assist in bringing ideas to market. In a collaboration with the University of British Columbia, online edX courses are supported that allow students across the country and around the world to build and test their own nanoscale photonic devices on multi-project wafers built with electron beam lithography at UW. Worldwide, UW participates in a network of 15 institutions in America, Asia and Europe that offer joint summer schools on nanotechnology for future global engineers.