UCI gets $20 million chemistry grant

UCI researchers have been granted $20 million to put toward their efforts to build equipment capable of recording video footage of individual molecules.

The National Science Foundation gave the Chemistry at the Space-Time Limit research center the award, which will be distributed over five years.

In order to accomplish his goal, center Director V. Ara Apkarian will have to find a way to successfully capture images at an unprecedented small size and fast pace. Specifically, billions of times as many frames per second will have to be shot at a magnification 10,000 times greater than the best existing optical microscope. Apkarian expects his results to accelerate the development of nanotechnologies.

— Alan Blank