Nanotechnology Research - Universities

The USC NanoCenter is the University's focal point for science and engineering studies of nanometer-scale structures, their unique properties, and their integration into functional units.

The NNRC is a university-wide user fabrication and metrology center providing state-of-the-art equipment, professional support personnel and infrastructure to enable multidisciplinary research in nanomaterials and nanomanufacturing methods related to fundamental materials science, sensors, actuators, electronics, bio-systems, medical products, optics and integrated nanoscale systems.

The Center of Excellence in NanoBiophysics supports faculty and students in the study of molecular nano-assembly, structures and functions, serving research programs in structural biology, nanotechnology, nanomedicine, molecular biology, biochemistry and materials sciences.

The Core Center of Excellence in Nano Imaging provides research tools for imaging, visualization and analysis of nano-scale features and structures, including electron microscopy, light microscopy and microanalysis resources.

The John O’Brien Nanofabrication Laboratory is a core USC research facility open to USC researchers and external users. Its instrumentation supports work ranging from quantum transport studies to nano/bioconvergent research.

The NAMI group focuses on nanoscale materials and electronics, including synthesis and characterization of nanomaterials and structures and the development of novel devices with low power consumption, enhanced performance, versatile functionality and high integration density.

The Nano Lab at USC, led by Professor Chongwu Zhou, conducts research covering spiking neural networks and neuromorphic computing, carbon nanotubes, two-dimensional materials, lithium and sodium ion batteries, and bio nanotechnology.

The Madhukar Group's research has revolved around electronic response (electrical and optical) of synthesized materials and structures in reduced (two, one, and zero) dimensions and their potential use in electronic and optoelectronic devices for information sensing, processing, imaging and computing technologies. The emphasis for some time has been on three dimensionally confined (i.e. zero dimensional) nanostructures called quantum dots and the scope in recent years has expanded to include biochemical materials (peptides, proteins) and hybrid semiconductor-biomolecular nanostructures for biomedical applications, particularly neural prostheses.

Various centers and research groups that are dealing with nanoscale polymer research.

The group's mission is to develop novel semiconductor materials and devices to address a few issues facing today's semiconductor industry, and more generally, our society. Research focuses on semiconductor surfaces, interfaces, and thin films.