14 DAY TRIAL // A new state-of-the-art Western Institute of Nanotechnology on Green Engineering and Metrology (WIN-GEM) will be built at the UCLA, officials from the university announced.
The facility, which will support research into advanced energy conservation technologies, will be responsible for innovating microelectronics and nanotechnology.
The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), which is managed by the US Commerce Department, funds the construction of WIN-GEM with a $6 million grant.
Scientists at the University of California in Los Angeles' (UCLA) Henry Samueli School of Engineering and Applied Science are the beneficiaries of the support grant.
According to NIST documents, the $6 million are destined to benefit core research facilities at the UCLA centers of excellence. WIN-GEM is meant to support work in these leading research groups.
“We are grateful to NIST for the opportunity to be able to work on such a groundbreaking project as WIN-GEM,” explains the dean of UCLA Engineering, Vijay K. Dhir.
“The world-class facility will allow our faculty to continue their innovative research in areas that will advance essential energy conservation technologies,” the official goes on to explain.
“It gives us great excitement and pleasure to learn that NIST is funding our new WIN-GEM building,” adds Kang L. Wang, who is the principal investigator of WIN-GEM.
“We are thrilled to be a part of this construction plan, and the support will further strengthen our continued collaboration with NIST,” he adds.
Wang, a professor of electrical engineering, is the director of both the Center on Functional Engineered Nano Architectonics, and of the Western Institute of Electronics at the university.
“WIN-GEM will allow UCLA to consolidate and upgrade several other centers' facilities and equipment that are now spread out across multiple sites at the university,” the expert reveals.
According to the approved plans, the WIN-GEM facility will include more than 35,000 square feet of laboratory space, which will be organized on four levels.
The main research that will be conducted here will concern the fields of low-power, nonvolatile nanoelectronics, green manufacturing of novel nanomaterial-based energy technologies, and new materials for energy generation, storage and management.
The roof of the building will include a solar-cell array for energy supply and power-management experimentation.
“This award is extremely timely, given the current state budget constraints. State-of-the-art infrastructure is greatly needed to support the innovative and critical work of our faculty,” says Jane P. Chang.
“ Furthermore, the green engineering and manufacturing aspects of the project are in line with both the direction of the city of Los Angeles and state of California and promise a greater impact when construction is completed,” she adds.
The expert is the co-principal investigator of the project, and also an associate dean of research and physical resources at UCLA Engineering.