Areas of impact

That’s because nano is not a specific technology. It does not belong to a particular industry or discipline. It is, rather, a revolutionary way of understanding and working with matter.

More and more faculty are joining the nano revolution—because the opportunities for invention are as vast as nature itself.

Faculty in departments across MIT—more than 20% of all researchers—are now taking advantage of our new power to synthesize and manipulate molecules with breathtaking precision. Everywhere they look, our faculty and students see thrilling potential for impact in areas like computing and communications, energy, health and health care, manufacturing, materials and structures, prototyping, sustainable futures, and toolmaking.

Speeding past silicon to reinvent electronics

Graphene and gallium nitride, new materials that are faster and more powerful than silicon. A transistor just 22 nanometers wide. Nano-powered propulsion systems for satellites the size of a Rubik’s cube. Optical computing that calculates using light rather than electricity. Electronics have powered the modern era—and nanotechnology is powering the future of electronics.

Nano Power in Space

CubeSats, nanosatellites about the size of a Rubik’s cube, carry communications systems into space, supporting space and planetary research. MIT engineers are using nanomaterials to build penny-sized thrusters, which can power CubeSats for bigger missions and increasingly complex tasks. 
Professor Paulo Lozano SM '98, PhD '03

Alternatives to Silicon

To build faster and smarter computing devices, the size of transistors must keep shrinking to allow increasing numbers of them to be squeezed onto microchips—and silicon cannot keep pace. A team at MIT used a new material, indium gallium arsenide, to develop the smallest transistor ever built from a silicon rival, just 22 nanometers long. 
Professors Jesús del Alamo and Dimitri Antoniadis

Storing the Digital Universe

The digital universe, the data we produce and copy, doubles every two years, and by 2020 will reach 44 trillion gigabytes—but storage capacity is not keeping pace. Researchers in the Thin-Film Laboratory are exploiting the behavior of materials at the nanoscale to combine the magnetic and electrical properties of iron oxides to make data storage devices that are smaller, denser, and more energy efficient. 
Professor Caroline Ross

The future of energy, from sources to systems

The lightbulb reimagined, with the potential to save more than 10% of global electricity. Flexible solar panels as easy to produce as an inkjet print. Rapidly charging batteries. New materials to harvest energy from heat. Nanotechnology enables sweeping transformations to our sources and systems of energy that address surging demand while safeguarding the health of the planet.

Tapping the Sun's Energy Through Heat

A pair of MIT professors are collaborating to explore a novel material made in part from carbon nanotubes. Sunlight heats the material, causing it to emit infrared radiation that is then collected by a conventional photovoltaic cell. Adding the extra step not only improves performance by taking advantage of wavelengths of light that ordinarily go to waste, but could also make it easier to store energy in the form of heat for later use.
Professor Marin Soljačić '96 and Associate Professor Evelyn Wang '00

Solving the Energy Storage Problem

The biggest drawback to many sources of clean, renewable energy is their intermittency: the wind doesn't always blow, the sun doesn't always shine. The power they produce may not be available when it's needed. An MIT team is developing inexpensive liquid batteries with nanoscale components that could help solve the problem by storing that energy on a scale useful to major electric utilities.
Professor Donald Sadoway and David Bradwell MEng '06, PhD '11

New Wireless Energy Technologies

Wireless sensors have seemingly endless uses, but there is one limiting factor to the technology: power. A new micro-electro mechanical system the size of a quarter harvests energy from low-frequency vibrations, such as those produced by a swaying bridge. This naturally powered system could generate many times the power of similar devices—and power wireless sensors indefinitely.
Professor Sang-Gook Kim PhD '85 and Arman Hajati PhD '11

Personalized, targeted, nanoscale medicine

Drugs that seek out cancer cells, leaving surrounding tissue unharmed. Nanoparticle “tattoos” to monitor diabetes without drawing blood. Controlling brain activity with light. Devices that build a synthetic bridge between severed nerves in paralyzed patients. Nanotechnology operates at the same scale as the body, offering powerful new approaches to human health.

New Tools to Fight Cancer

Cancer kills more people annually in the developing world than AIDS, malaria, and tuberculosis combined. MIT engineers have developed a simple and cheap paper test that, like a pregnancy test, could reveal the presence of cancer within minutes. Based on nanoparticles, the test could help people receive treatment earlier, especially in the developing world.
Professor Sangeeta Bhatia SM '93, PhD '97

Nanoparticle "Tattoo" Sensors

A “tattoo” of nanoparticles engineered to be sensitive to glucose could change how people with diabetes monitor their blood sugar. The technique takes advantage of the nanoparticles’ ability to fluoresce under infrared light: a watch-like monitor could then detect the amount of fluorescence—and sugar.
Professor Michael Strano and Dr. Paul Barone

New Approaches to Drug Delivery

Drugs delivered by nanoparticles hold promise for targeted treatment of many diseases, but the need to inject them limits their usefulness. MIT researchers have developed a new type of nanoparticle that can be delivered to patients orally in pill form and absorbed through the digestive tract.
Professors Robert Langer ScD '74, Rohit Karnik, and colleagues from Brigham and Women's Hospital

Remaking the concept of making

Viruses that self-assemble as parts of batteries. New methods to quickly mass-produce tailored nanoparticles for medicine. Stronger, lighter airplanes constructed from carbon nanotube composites. Techniques to spin nanofibers a thousand times thinner than a human hair. Nanotechnology is not just producing new innovations—it’s enabling innovative ways to produce them.

Controlling the Structure of Nanowires

One MIT team has developed technology that precisely controls the composition and structure of nanowires as they grow by adjusting the reactive gas content used in the process. This work could make it possible to grow complex structures that are optimally tailored for specific applications. For example, precisely structured nanowires could facilitate a new generation of semiconductor devices with better functionality than conventional thin-film devices made of the same materials. Other likely applications include cheaper light-emitting diodes, or LEDs, for an eco-friendly alternative to conventional lighting, and lower-cost solar panels.
Associate Professor Silvija Gradečak

Making Nanospinning Practical

Electrospinning produces nanofibers that are incredibly thin—a thousand times thinner than a human hair—and easy to manufacture in large quantities. MIT groups are working to commercialize this technology for applications ranging from sensors and drug delivery to air filtration, water purification, energy storage, protective clothing, and tissue engineering.
Professors Gregory Rutledge PhD '90, Alan Hatton, Karen Gleason '82, SM '82, Robert Cohen, Gareth McKinley PhD '91, and Michael Rubner PhD '86

Nanoscale "Factories"

Mini-factories with nanoscale features could spell the future for manufacturing everything from nanoparticles to industrial chemicals. MIT researchers have developed several such "microreactors," such as one that squeezes large molecules through a cell membrane to help generate induced pluripotent stem cells with a success rate 10 to 100 times better than any existing method.
Professors Klavs F. Jensen, Robert Langer ScD '74, and Martin A. Schmidt SM '83, PhD '88

Demonstrating results across industries

Offering surgeons a new tool to detect cancer cells in the operating room. Rapid commercialization of a low-cost chemical sensor to reduce spoilage in the food industry. Bringing to market a novel ultracapacitor able to store twice as much energy and deliver about 10 times as much power as conventional means. To make a real difference, nanotechnology must be demonstrated and deployed at scale in the real world.

Reducing Food Waste

MIT chemistry researchers are working on molecule-based chemical sensors for environmental and agricultural applications. A start-up called C₂Sense is using the lab’s discoveries to develop a new, ultra-low-cost sensor to detect ethylene—a byproduct of fruit ripening. The chemiresistive sensor can sniff out even sub-parts-per-million levels of ethylene, while beating out current ethylene-sensing products in terms of affordability, size, production, and ease of integration. It’s a game-changing technology that paves the way for unprecedented reductions in food waste, which in the US is estimated at roughly 30% to 40% of the food supply.
Professor Timothy Swager

Catching All Cancer Cells

Even the tiniest bit of tumor left behind creates a pathway for cancer to recur. Now, a new surgical tool developed at MIT and commercialized by Lumicell Diagnostics lets surgeons know if any malignant cells remain. A drug made of a protein bound to two fluorescent molecules causes cancer cells to light up when exposed to this device, alerting the surgeon to remove them.
Professors Linda Griffith, Moungi Bawendi; colleagues at Duke University and Massachusetts General Hospital

Transforming the Energy Scene

FastCAP Systems has begun shipping a novel technology that can store twice as much energy and deliver about 10 times as much power as conventional means. Equipped with carbon-nanotube-coated electrodes, the new ultracapacitor will enable fuel-efficient, high-performance hybrid cars that are cost-competitive with non-hybrid vehicles. It also could create more smoothly operating solar- and wind-powered grids.
Professors Joel Schindall '63, SM '64, PhD '67 and John G. Kassakian '65, '67, SM '67, ScD '73

From nanoscale to global impact

Nanoparticles that clean oil spills by making the soil respond to magnets. Using sheets of graphene or packed glass nanospheres for cheaper, more efficient desalination. Stiffer pavement that could reduce US vehicle fuel consumption by 3%. From gains in efficiency to reinventing entire industries, nanotechnology is shaping a sustainable future.

Food Preservation

The tropical root vegetable cassava is a staple crop for millions in sub-Saharan Africa. But after harvesting, it rots within a few days. An MIT team has designed a simple way to prolong cassava’s shelf life: a plastic storage bag lined with nanoparticles that react with oxygen, preventing spoilage. The group also invented a container with a nanopatterned, antimicrobial coating to preserve milk.
Professor Paula Hammond '84, PhD '93 and international colleagues through the Meridian Institute

Greener Nanotubes

Carbon nanotubes—tiny, hollow cylinders made of carbon atoms—hold promise for applications in electronics, medicine, and other fields. Producing nanotubes, however, releases chemicals into the atmosphere that include greenhouse gases and hazardous pollutants. MIT researchers have found that simply by removing one step in the production process, emissions are reduced 10-fold and energy use is halved.
Professors Philip Gschwend and A. John Hart SM '02, PhD '06; visiting professor Desirée Plata PhD ‘09

Rethinking Desalination

Desalination could address global water shortages, but current methods are expensive. MIT researchers have produced sheets of graphene—a layer of carbon just one atom thick—with precise, nano-sized holes that block salt ions but let water molecules through. This method could lead to a new generation of desalination plants that are cheaper, faster, and smaller.
Professor Jeffrey Grossman and graduate student David Cohen-Tanugi SM '12

New tools for a new scale

A device that measures the weight of particles lighter than a single molecule of water. A process for quickly designing, testing, and refining nanoscopic patterns on the fly. Using nanowires to sense extremely low-light laser signals. A camera that can measure temperature to one-millionth of a degree. Working at a scale never before possible requires new tools and techniques to get the work done. 

Measuring Microvibration

In a noisy room, the human ear can isolate a single voice—a feat that computers can’t match. By studying the vibration of tiny pores within the ear just a few tenths of nanometers wide, MIT researchers have unlocked the secret of mechanically separating sounds. Their work holds promise for crafting superior speech-recognition technologies.
Professor Dennis Freeman SM '76, PhD '86 and colleagues at the University of Sussex

Tracking Temperature Changes

Hot spots can indicate a defect or even imminent catastrophic failure in microelectric and optoelectronic devices, but were once undetectable at that scale. Now, MIT engineers have created a digital camera that can measure temperature to one-millionth of a degree. The resulting high-resolution thermal images can ferret out those spots where heat may spell trouble or point to potential improvements.
Professor Rajeev J. Ram

Using Magnetic Fields

MIT engineers developed a way to control nanoscale diamond sensors capable of measuring even nanoscale magnetic fields. The sensors could enable researchers to monitor living cells, allowing studies of how they transmit electrical signals to each other. The sensors also could lead to computers that can crack encryptions or quickly search huge databases.
Professor Paola Cappellaro PhD '06 and colleagues from Harvard University and other institutions