Build National Connectivity
Connect fabrication knowledge across facilities while preserving source, context, and institutional expertise.
The NanoKnow™ VisionA connected national ecosystem for nanofabrication knowledge
Across the United States, academic and government nanofabrication facilities support research, training, prototyping, and technology development. Each facility develops valuable local expertise, but that knowledge is often difficult to find beyond the people, documents, and systems where it was first created.
NanoKnow envisions a connected national ecosystem where fabrication knowledge can move more easily across institutions — helping labs learn from one another, reduce duplicated effort, train the next generation, and accelerate the path from research discovery to real-world technology.
The map below illustrates the scale of this opportunity.
Figure 1. Map of 172 academic and government nanofabrication facilities in the United States. These sites illustrate the national nanofabrication ecosystem NanoKnow is designed to serve and are not implied to be NanoKnow partner institutions.
A Shared Challenge
The map shows a broad national ecosystem of facilities with different tools, missions, users, and institutional contexts. Yet many of these labs face similar challenges: documenting processes, training users, troubleshooting tools, preserving staff expertise, and helping researchers find reliable fabrication knowledge.
When this knowledge remains isolated, facilities spend time and resources solving similar problems independently. NanoKnow’s vision is to create a common knowledge layer that helps local expertise become more discoverable, reusable, and useful across the broader community.
This shared layer preserves context, attribution, and source information while making practical knowledge easier to find and build upon.
The Opportunity Ahead
The future of U.S. semiconductor, quantum, and nanotechnology innovation depends not only on advanced tools, but on the ability to share expertise, train skilled people, and move knowledge across institutions. NanoKnow helps build that connective layer — turning distributed facility knowledge into a resource that can accelerate research, strengthen the workforce, and support technology translation.
Accelerate Shared Progress
Help facilities save time and resources by building on existing expertise instead of solving common problems in isolation.
Support Workforce Development
Expand access to practical nanofabrication knowledge for students, staff, researchers, and emerging technology leaders.