Remodeled lab to open this fall

University of Illinois Micro and Nanotechnology Laboratory.

University of Illinois Micro and Nanotechnology Laboratory.

By Frank Radosevich II

The University’s Micro and Nanotechnology Laboratory, 208 N. Wright St., under construction since May 2005, is tentatively slated to reopen late fall semester of 2006.

The laboratory, touted on its Web site as “one of the nation’s largest and most sophisticated university-based facilities for semiconductor, nanotechnology, and biotechnology research,” is currently undergoing a substantial expansion and modernization.

Construction expects to finish in late October or early November with faculty hopefully reoccupying the building in December, said Randy Ervin, director for Facilities Management for the College of Engineering. The $19.45 million project will add nearly 50,000 square feet for faculty and student offices, general-purpose laboratories and classrooms. Two new wings, on the north and south side of the structure, will be added along with a new facade, making the building 50 percent larger. The scrubbers on the building’s exhaust system will also be replaced.

The Illinois VentureTECH program, a state-funded initiative to support high-tech research, provided $18 million for the project with various campus funds covering the remaining costs.

Ilesanmi Adesida, interim dean for the College of Engineering and professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering, called the renovation, “another step in the advancement in high-level multidisciplinary research and education.”

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Adesida added that the facility will be “not only for the College of Engineering but for all colleges to come and collaborate in.”

Various campus departments, researchers from other universities, and private companies have already used the facilities and equipment found in the laboratory and will continue to do so in the future, Adesida said.

Kent Choquette, acting director of the laboratory and a professor in Electrical and Computer Engineering, said that “the driving force behind the project is the hope to provide more opportunities on campus to work together.”

“The Micro and Nanotechnology laboratory is why I’m here at this University,” Choquette said.

Professors and students, in spite of the ongoing construction, still currently use the laboratory’s facilities. The building’s sophisticated cleanroom laboratories, labs scrupulously sterilized and cleansed to create an impurities-free work environment, have remained open throughout the reconfiguration.

“The construction was meant to affect the cleanrooms as little as possible,” Choquette said.

Although construction has been in progress since summer of 2005, the process has been “fairly painless,” said Choquette. Some digging and grinding did disturb a few researchers; however, they managed to continue their work with only minor inconvenience.

Ultimately, Adesida said, the expansion and remodeling of the lab will make it a state-of-the-art facility for cutting-edge research.

“It will be a premier facility for a premier university,” Adesida said.