Lehigh in top 5 for Nano

Small Times, the nation's top business journal devoted to micro- and nanotechnology, has ranked Lehigh among the top five schools in the U.S. for micro industry outreach.
Lehigh offers numerous industry partnerships and an active internship program, the journal said in the feature article of its May-June issue. Some 95 percent of its undergraduates finish internships or co-ops before graduation. Industry funding for engineering reached almost $6 million in 2004.
Lehigh ranked third in industry outreach in the Small Times survey, behind the State University of New York at Albany and Iowa State University, and ahead of the University of Texas at Austin and MIT.
Small Times noted that Lehigh invited more than 60 industry representatives in March to Forum 2005 to celebrate the university's acquisition of two aberration-corrected electron microscopes.
Forum 2005, sponsored by Lehigh's Center for Advanced Materials and Nanotechnology (CAMN), featured the first executive meeting of the Lehigh Nanotechnology Network (LNN), which was formed last year and is overseen by the CAMN.
LNN comprises 48 organizations from industry, government and academia, including the Ben Franklin Technology Partners of Northeast PA, the Lehigh Valley Economic Development Corp. and the Great Valley Technology Alliance.
CAMN also maintains an Industry Liaison Program that was founded more than 40 years ago by Lehigh's Materials Research Center, which was reorganized in 2003 as the CAMN.
Martin Harmer, CAMN director, said LNN offers members a venue in which to interact with Lehigh faculty, generate and exchange ideas, and make and use nano-products. There is no fee to join.
Ten to 20 companies belong to the Industry Liaison Program, Harmer said, and have access to Lehigh's renowned nano-characterization facilities.
Lehigh has one of the world's largest collections of electron and light microscopes. Since 1970, the university has hosted a two-week Microscopy School, the most extensive short courses anywhere that are devoted to microscopy.
Lehigh is the only university in the world with two aberration-corrected electron microscopes. The instruments, fitted with a special feedback mechanism, can resolve iMore than 50 faculty members, representing Lehigh's four colleges, are affiliated with CAMN. Their areas of expertise include semiconductors, electromagnetic waves, surface phemomena, catalysis, ceramics, the social implications of scientific research, science education, nonlinear optical effects, light scattering, polymer processing, nanotechnology for environmental clean-up, and more.
Lehigh belongs to, and receives micro- and nanotechnology research funding from, two Materials Research Science and Engineering Centers - the Pennsylvania MRSEC and the National Science Foundation MRSEC.
Lehigh and five other Pennsylvania schools make up the Materials Pennsylvania Coalition, or MatPAC, through which the schools use satellite and web-based technologies to share graduate-level and advanced undergraduate-level courses.