Chalmers to host national micro and nanotech centre

In an agreement between the Swedish Research Council and Chalmers, the Swedish nano and microfabrication network, Myfab, which includes labs at Chalmers, the Royal Institute of Technology, and Uppsala University, is to become a national centre.

The Research Council has commissioned Chalmers to host the national infrastructure for Myfab, which will be open to researchers from all over Sweden.

“Myfab has developed into a major national infrastructure for micro and nano science. The laboratories provide open access to highly advanced equipment for researchers throughout the country and also from abroad,” says Lars Börjesson, General Secretary for Research Infrastructures at the Swedish Research Council. He added, “Myfab is also an important crossroads for researchers from several disciplines, and from both academia and the business community.”

As a result of the agreement, Myfab be upgrading its equipment and enhancing its user support. Together with other Swedish universities, colleges and other research institutions, Myfab will take part in national and international development projects in clean-room-based methods for micro and nano technology.

“This coordination will further reinforce Sweden’s position in the nano, ICT, and materials fields. The fact that Chalmers has been entrusted with serving as host is both an incentive and a great responsibility,” says Chalmers President Karin Markides. Funding from the Swedish Research Council will enable Myfab to plan over a longer term and cast its net further, to collaborate with researchers outside Sweden.

Myfab has underpinned a number of recent scientific advances, for example, providing the Herschel telescope with a tiny superconducting component with the sensitivity to detect extremely weak signals from dark matter in the universe. In clean rooms at Ångström Laboratory in Uppsala, an algal battery has been developed, and at Electrum Laboratory, KTH, technologies have been developed for medical sensor applications and energy-efficient components for electrical driving systems.