ice University is ranked at #3 among institutions doing research in nanotechnology, according to a ESI Special Topics analysis on the past decade of research in this area. According to the ISI Essential Science Indicators Web product, Rice’s primary strengths lie in the fields of Physics and Chemistry, respectively. Here, incites correspondent Gary Taubes speaks with the Director of Rice’s Center for Nanoscale Science and Technology, Dr. Richard Smalley, about the Center’s role in Rice’s citation record. Also, in addition to an interview with Dr. Richard Smalley, he is listed in ESI Special Topics: Nanotechnology's rankings of the: "Top 25 Papers" and "Top 25 Authors" categories.

I think you'll find that if you take the fullerene and carbon nanotube papers out, the increase isn't so extreme. I think those constitute the bulk of what the extra citations are. That would be the reasonable first hypothesis. But there is another thing going on, which is that Rice in the early-to-mid-1990s did wrap itself around the notion of science and engineering on a nanometer scale. Nanotechnology became the unifying theme for our recruitment for a good fraction of our openings. And we brought in some very good people. That has had a good effect. So even without the papers on fullerenes and carbon nanotubes, you would still see a substantial increase in citations and activity at Rice over the previous decade, but it would not be the sort of increase that would make you sit up and take notice.

  In effect, you're saying that the increase comes about because Rice researchers were at the forefront of a fertile and rapidly evolving field and took advantage of it?

Yes. And the University has responded to that fertile field. We had brought people here to campus because of the nano program and my guess is that those people have probably been fairly highly cited: Jim Tour, Andy Barron, Vicki Colvin, Naomi Hallas, and Jennifer West are some of these people.

  Did the university respond with any specific programs or was it just a general trend?

Well, in fact, we created the Rice Center for Nanoscale Science and Technology during that period and that may have played an important role. I was the stimulus for that. Back in 1992 or 1993, the chemistry department here held a retreat to think about the future of chemistry at Rice. To put this in perspective, chemistry has historically been the strongest department in science at Rice and has occupied the largest science or engineering building on campus. It has always been a great strength. Several of Rice's presidents were chemists. So we held this retreat, my colleagues and I, agonizing over how we could reverse a trend from over the past five years of not being able to fill our chaired position openings and even having difficulty in recruiting junior faculty in many instances. We all agreed that the central problem was that it was difficult to recruit into an old building. The administration had been sympathetic and a new chemistry building was on the list of buildings to be built, but not high on the list. So we were all pretty depressed. After a long silence, I asked my colleagues, "What would you think if we abandoned the notion of building a chemistry building and instead built a building devoted to nanotechnology?" If we did, there would be interest in the name and in the pictures it conjures up and we could probably use that to get private donations to fund the building. Whereas, if you go out to get private donations to fund a chemistry building, that's the kiss of death. The bad news, of course, would be that the chemistry department would probably never get its new chemistry building. To my colleagues’ credit, uniformly the response was, "Cool. If we can build it, let's do it."

Within a few days we talked with Neal Lane, who was then the provost at Rice, and he became intrigued and instigated a study group, called the Nanotechnology Working Group, with me, Naomi Hallas, Peter Nordlander, and a number of others. For all of us, that was a transforming experience; we found that if this idea was more than a name, it would really reach right down to the very essence of what we thought was coolest about the future of our fields in different perspectives. It really changed all our individual perceptions of our future research. So we communicated this to the provost and there was a general agreement to build the building, but it needed to be triggered by some event. That event was my getting job offers in the same year from Berkeley and Princeton. I told Rice I would stay if they built this building, and they did. And we raised the money and had the help of an alumnus, a great lawyer in town named Harry Reasoner, and we came up with the name, the Center for Nanoscale Science and Technology (CNST). And as these things always evolve, once we had the name, the stuff filled in behind it. And we've been very successful—with recruiting, getting funding, and doing research. And this last year Rice succeeded in winning one of the National Science Foundation nanotechnology centers, which here is called the Center for Environmental and Biological Nanotechnology, of which I am co-director with Vicky Colvin.

  What do you see for the future of the CNST?

Well, starting in January, I will actually be stepping down as director of the CNST to be replaced by Wade Adams, who is coming in from Wright Patterson Air Force Base. He will be the new director and will be much more active in the future than I was in nurturing research collaborations on nanoscale science and technology here on campus and with the medical school across the way.

Also, in addition to an interview with Dr. Richard Smalley, he is listed in ESI Special Topics: Nanotechnology's rankings of the: "Top 25 Papers" and "Top 25 Authors." 

Rice University is ranked in the "Top 25 Institutions."

Rice University
Center for Nanoscale Science and Technology
Houston, TX, USA