Vision for the Center for Probing the Nanoscale

• The Center environment will challenge us, inform us, and stimulate us to develop better probes – and to develop them sooner than we could working individually.
• Our probes and our experiments will open the doors to new fields of science.
• The interdisciplinary Center will provide a broader and deeper education for students than graduate study in a single department can provide.
• Difficult problems which people from other organizations bring to the Center will inspire us and stimulate us to do outstanding science.
• Our probes and our experiments will solve materials problems that have restricted economic growth in the larger industrial community.
• Our experiments will not only demonstrate the capabilities of the probes, but also advance their development sufficiently so that industrial engineers can design commercial products based on our prototypes. We will transfer our probes to instrument manufacturers and share designs with other researchers so that people in all areas of nanoscale science and engineering can enjoy access to their capabilities.
• Our probes will help scientists and engineers to commercialize nanotechnologies.
• Our students will apply our probes to make discoveries that reveal deep truths of the nanoscopic world.
• Our students will be well educated and well positioned to make meaningful long-term contributions to nanoscale science ane engineering.

NSF-Stanford-IBM NSEC, Center for Probing the Nanoscale (CPN) Goals

• To develop novel probes that dramatically improve our capability to observe, manipulate, and control nanoscale objects and phenomena.
• To educate the next generation of scientists and engineers regarding the theory and practice of these probes.
• To apply these novel probes to answer fundamental questions and to shed light on technologically relevant issues.
• To disseminate our knowledge and to transfer our technology so that other research scientists and engineers can make use of our advances, and so that corporations can manufacture and market our novel probes.
• To inspire thousands of middle school students by training their teachers at a Summer Institute.