Polytec PI Announces NanoInnovation Grant

Estimated reading time: 2 minutes

Auburn, Mass. — Polytec PI Inc. announces the PI NanoInnovation Grant, an annual program to support research related to nanotechnology, optics and biotechnology.

The $25,000 PI NanoInnovation Grant program will award funding in the form of equipment to U.S. and Canadian researchers to help them reach their goals in developing new technologies, products or processes related to the nanopositioning requirements of their innovative research.

PI (Physik Instrumente) is the leading supplier of nanopositioning equipment used in the high-technology fields of:

• Life Sciences, Biotechnology
• Nanotechnology/MEMS
• Semiconductors
• Photonics, Fiber Optics, Telecom
• Lasers, Optics, Microscopy
• Aerospace Engineering
• Precision Machining
• Astronomy
• Data Storage

Who May ApplyGraduate students and post-doctoral researchers at academic institutions and research labs, who as principal investigators and sponsored by their faculty supervisor, are pursuing research, experimentation or development in which PI (Physik Instrumente) nanopositioning equipment and technologies are enablers to advance their research.

The total equipment award pool is $25,000/year, with distributions starting in calendar year 2004. Multiple award winners will be named if the award total is not exceeded. Awards are paid in new PI nanopositioning equipment, in the winning applicant's choice.

The deadline for submitting applications will be December 31 of each calendar year, with award announcements made by March 31 of the subsequent year. The first deadline is December 31, 2003, with award announcements scheduled for March 31, 2004. Press releases will be forwarded to research and industry journals with the award winner's name, institution and research project overview shortly after the award announcement is made to the applicant(s).

Applications should be in electronic format and should describe the project, explaining which PI equipment is planned to be used and for what purpose, up to two pages maximum. More details in terms of diagrams, drawings or pictures of the setup is a definite asset in the application. The applications confidentiality will be treated with the same standards as peer reviewed papers for scientific publication. The winning application(s), consisting of title and abstract along with the applicant's name and institution, will be released publicly in company prepared press releases with prior approval by the applicant's institution.

The PI NanoInnovation Grant Advisory Board decides which proposals win. This board consists of three scientific advisors with leadership in their respective technology fields that use and advise the use of nanopositioning equipment and instruments for their research and development activities. The Advisory Board consists of the following researchers:

• Bharat Bhushan, Ph.D., director, Nanotribology Laboratory for Information Storage and MEMS, Department of Mechanical Engineering, Professor, Design and Manufacturing,Ohio State University
• Martin Culpepper, Ph.D., director, Precision Systems Design and Manufacturing Labs, Department of Mechanical Engineering, MIT
• Eric Sanchez, assistant professor, Ultra High Resolution Scanning MicroscopiesDepartment of Physics, University of Portland

Submitted applications will be collected and sorted by PI USA's director of corporate marketing. After the closing date, these submissions will be each sent to the Scientific Advisory Board for scoring and then returned to PI for registering the scores and determining the top aggregate 10 scores. These will be returned to the Scientific Advisory Board for final review with recommendations on how the award grant can be distributed depending on the amounts required by the top scoring applications.

PI (Physik Instrumente) is a world-leading supplier of nanopositioning equipment. For more information, visit www.polytecpi.com.