Officially opened in September 21, 2012, the Mike & Ophelia Lazaridis Quantum-Nano Centre (QNC) is home to the Waterloo Institute for Nanotechnology (WIN) and the Institute for Quantum Computing (IQC).
The 285,000 square foot state-of-the-art building houses more than 50 researchers and more than 100 graduate students. It is also home to the largest undergraduate nanotechnology engineering program in Canada.
The centerpiece of the new building will be the nanotechnology multi-cluster laboratories. Labs specializing in nano-scale metrology and nano-fabrication will build on and support Waterloo's existing nanotechnology strengths.
The "honeycomb" structure is a dramatic focal point of the building that responds to several significant design and engineering challenges. The pattern was inspired by the fundamental building block of nanotechnology - the intrinsically stable hexagonal carbon structure of "graphene"
Technical specifications
- 285,000 square feet, shared between the Institute for Quantum Computing and the Waterloo Institute for Nanotechnology
- Meets highest scientific standards for control of vibration, humidity, electromagnetic radiation and temperature
- Cleanroom/fabrication facility enables design of structures billionths of a metre in size
- Labs constructed underground to minimize electromagnetic interference and vibration
- Highly convertible “mind spaces” accommodate conferences, public lectures and more
- Six-storey atrium with floating staircase provides common ground for scientists of all disciplines to meet and collaborate
- An architectural marvel at the heart of campus
- Vertical windows of varying reflectivity and transparency on the IQC side, metaphorically signify quantum superposition; honeycomb steel lattice on the WIN side represents graphene, a building block of nanotechnology
Nanotechnology facilities at the Mike & Ophelia Lazaridis Quantum-Nano Centre
The Quantum NanoFab facility is a world-class operation. The ultra-sterile cleanroom/fabrication facility is constructed upon a separate foundation from the rest of the building, ensuring that it will never vibrate more than a micron (a fraction of the width of a human hair).
Molecular Beam Epitaxy
(MBE) Facility
The QNC MBE facility houses a Veeco GEN10 MBE system that enables the product of nanomaterials such as sophisticated III/V semiconductors for devices of the future. The facility will support research programs in photonics to quantum computing.
The QNC Metrology Labs contain a full suite of tools to see, measure, manipulate and build materials at the nanoscale.