This developing cluster contains several different fields:

Assets like Los Alamos and Sandia National Laboratories, White Sands Missile Range and Kirtland Air Force Base have been central to the growth of nanotech/microelectronics. Add in venture capital, small tech expertise and quality of life and New Mexico has the necessary elements to make this cluster, considered by some to be the biggest technologies development since the semiconductor, a success.

 

Its Science, Technology and Engineering program oversees six areas of research: Bioscience, Computers and Information Science, Engineering Sciences, Materials Science and Technology (including CINT), Microelectronics and Micro Systems (home to MESA, the world’s only fabrication facility that combines silicon processing with fabrication of compound semiconductors under one roof) and Pulsed Power. The Labs have also had a long involvement with optics, including lasers, plasma science, and remote sensing. Two areas of focus include the Optical Diagnostic Facility developing imaging diagnostics for transport in microfluidic systems, and the Pulsed Power Technology branch using pulsed power to generate and apply energetic beams and high-power energy pulses. www.sandia.gov/index.html

 

 

More than a dozen separate institutional centers make up the Strategic Science Division, many with ties to this cluster, including: Center for Nonlineal Studies, the Institute for Complex Adaptive Matter and the Lujan Neutron Scattering Center. Additionally, the LANL National Security center includes a Nuclear Weapons division that has eight areas of focus, including Biothreats and Battlefield Technologies.

 

LANL’s major programs in the optics arena include lidar, fiber-optic sensors, fiber-optic transmitters and receivers, pulsed laser deposition of electronic materials, tunable and short pulse solid-state lasers, and modeling and simulation. They also feature the Trident Laser Laboratory. www.lanl.gov/

 

 

Ultrafast spectroscopy, physical synthesis, nano fluidics and chemical synthesis. One of five Office of Science Nanoscale Science Research Centers (NSRC). Its core facility is in Albuquerque with gateways to both Sandia and Los Alamos National Labs. Sandia’s group focuses on nanomaterials and microfabrication while the Los Alamos group focuses on biosciences and nanomaterials. cint.lanl.gov/

 

 

UNM features two facilities for Microsystems work. Manufacturing Engineering Training and Tech Center (MTTC): The MTTC features a 57,000 square foot facility that includes areas used for  research and development, start-up companies, manufacturing prototyping, labs, classrooms, prototyping bays, CAD rooms and a 6,200 SF cleanroom. It is one of only 12 such incubators in the nation. Areas of research include robotics and semiconductor manufacturing. The on-site Manufacture Engineering Program has computers, robot hardware and control software, CAD/CAM packages, factory simulators, dynamic systems modeling software, and extensive semiconductor processing equipment. www-mep.unm.edu/mttc.php

 

UNM also features the Center for High Technology Material (CHTM):

 

Established in 1983, CHMT’s mission is research and education in two disciplines: optoelectronics (emphasizing semiconductor laser sources, optical modulators and optical fibers) and microelectronics (applying semiconductor technology to electronic and optoelectronic devices). Local collaboration includes work with LANL, SNL and Intel. The facilities feature a 5000 square foot, Class 100/1000 cleanroom for semiconductor manufacturing, 35,000 square feet of laboratory space and a Crystal Growth Facility used in advanced semiconductor device structures. Of their $7 million yearly budget, 80 percent of it is funded by external research projects. www.chtm.unm.edu/index.html

 

 

The nation’s only site capable of supporting a broad range of directed energy technologies for the DoD, academia, industry and other government agencies. The multi-million dollar facilities include a Mid-Infrared Advanced Chemical Laser, a Sea Lite Beam Director, a Pulsed Laser Vulnerability Test System, a Laser Demonstration Device, and an Effects Test Area. www.wsmr.army.mil/wsmr.asp?pg=y&page=104

 

 

Located at Albuquerque’s Kirtland Air Force Base, this national center for high-powered lasers and optics is under the command of the Directed Energy Directorate. Lasers, high-powered microwaves, optics, and imaging technologies are among areas of research. www.kirtland.af.mil/afrl%5Fde/

 

 

The University of New Mexico’s Optical Science and Engineering program offers both M.S. and Ph.D. degrees. The program has produced successful results in fields like the quantum theory of lasers and ultrashort pulse physics, and often collaborates with New Mexico’s three National Labs. http://optics.unm.edu/

 

UNM’s Electrical and Computer Sciences department features the first Microsystems chair established at a university.

 

New Mexico State University has an optics program that features graduate training in their Electro-optics Research Laboratory. http://optics.nmsu.edu/mercury2.html

 

The Photonics Technologies program at CNM in Albuquerque offers both certificate and associate degrees. Students develop skills utilized in laser and fiber optics research labs. www.cnm.edu/depts/at/programs/photonics/

 

CNM, in partnership with UNM and SNL, is also the home of the Southwest Center for Microsystems Education (SCME), teaching a tech-level curriculum in Microsystems.

 

The Photonics Academy at West Mesa High School in Albuquerque helps students from junior high through graduate studies prepare for college as well as learn high tech skills to enter the job world. This pioneering educational program began in 2001. http://see-the-light.com/pop_wmhs.php

 

The Nano-Network of New Mexico is organized as a project of the Micro and Nanotechnology Commercialization Education Foundation (MANCEF), a volunteer-based, global non-profit dedicated to the acceleration of commercialization of miniaturization technologies through educational products and projects. www.mancef.org