London – Technologies that improve the resolution of digital cameras, expand memory in portable computers and improve the capacity of medical and industrial imaging continue to shrink in size.

“Something has to give,” says Giovanni Fanchini, who was named Tier Two Canada Research Chair (CRC) in Carbon-based nanomaterials and nano-optoelectronics at The University of Western Ontario this morning.

“Soon, the continued demand for miniaturization will not be sustainable without introducing new components with much smaller dimensions and characteristics than are used today.”

As a result, scientists and industry are turning to nano-devices – objects that are a hundred thousand times smaller than a human hair, but still able to, for example, collect light or operate a digital camera. Current challenges associated with many nanomaterials include the high cost of production and difficulties manipulating them.

Fanchini addresses these concerns by assembling nano-devices from low-cost organic materials like plastics and uses techniques like solution-processing that dissolve materials into droplets of liquid from which nano-devices are traced onto designated locations, like pictures from ink on the tip of a pen.

Nano-optoelectronics work conducted in his lab allows for solution-processing and prototyping novel nano-devices that may dramatically improve and completely transform some objects we use currently, including mobile phones and personal computers.

Fanchini was recruited to Western’s Faculty of Science from Rutgers University in the United States.

In addition, two Western Chairholders also had their CRCs renewed for another term:

* Tsun-Kong Sham, Tier One CRC in Materials and Synchrotron Radiation
* Danièle Bélanger, Tier Two CRC in Population, Gender and Development

The Chairs program has been designed to encourage and promote top research and innovation in universities. Tier One Chairs receive $200,000 annually for seven years to fund their research and are awarded to outstanding researchers who have developed reputations as world leaders in their fields. Tier Two Chairholders receive $100,000 annually for five years and are recognized as exceptional and emerging researchers with the potential to lead their respective fields.