Nobel laureate Richard Feynman gave a thought provoking talk on December 29th 1959 at the annual meeting of the American Physical Society at the California institute of technology (Caltec.) He predicted that by the year 2000, products would be built one atom at a time. This was a great vision as it represented a new paradigm for manufacturing and fundamental economic shift and now human race is heading towards a second industrial revolution. The shift is referred to as “Nanotechnology revolution”.

Many organizations all over the world have started R & D activity in the field. This is emerging as an area of fast growth and potential employment. This technology holds a great promise of exciting applications in materials, electronics, medicine, food, communication links, bioscience, environment and other fields. Nanotechnology is an emerging interdisciplinary field combining principles of chemistry and physics with the engineering principles of material design, structural analysis, computer science, electrical engineering and system engineering. It is the technology to make things small, light, strong, and cheap.

The Centre for Nano Science and Technology (CNST) aims at initiating and pursuing research activities in areas related to nanotechnology and nanoscale phenomena, for various applications at Masters level and collaborative research with other universities, institutes and industries. The major funding for the Department is through DST, Government of India. There are also research projects proposed Nano Sensors for Toxic gas detection, Development of Low Cost Solar Photovoltaic Panels Using Nano Polymers For Enhanced Conversion Efficiency , Improving Fuel Pellet Performance using Nano materials and Microwave Sintering Process, etc.,

Various research problems of academic and industrial importance are being addressed in the Centre. Apart from the experimental and computational facilities in the laboratory, assistance from centralized facilities and other laboratories are also utilized in synthesis, characterization and analysis, as and when required.

The major facilities available in the laboratory include standard equipment as well as custom-made test rigs and experimental systems developed as part of the ongoing research projects.