The £8 million (€11.9m) research institute will position Northern Ireland at the forefront of nanotechnology research in the UK, which has earmarked £90 million in funding for the emerging discipline. The Jordanstown site will focus particularly on applications of nanoscale materials in biotechnology, medical devices and textile industrial sectors.
News of the investment comes at a time when the UK's record of investing in nanotechnology has come under fire from the government's House of Commons select committee on science and technology, which says the country is losing its position in an industry it had been leading in the 1980s and 1990s.
Among the main topics of research at the facility will be bio-sensing, tissue engineering, drug delivery, surface science, plasma technology and nano-scale patterning and manipulation. It is funded by the European Union, industry and the UK government, as well as the Higher Education Funding Council for England (HEFCE.
Commenting on the opening, the Director of the Institute, Professor Jim McLaughlin, said: "Our ability to arrange atoms lies at the foundation of this exciting new technology. The ability to arrange atoms through new processing techniques, modifications to atomic surfaces, or molecules, or interrogating DNA at the nanoscale, all have exciting device applications, which can lead - via improved bio-devices - to a better quality of life, improved wealth creation and a stronger base to fully develop our new knowledge based economy."
The new Institute will be heavily involved in knowledge transfer - leveraging university research for the benefit of industry and commerce. Already, new spin-out ventures are being developed in the areas of new biological sensors, nano-scale coatings and nano-fabricated drug delivery, he noted.
The formal opening ceremony was performed by Nobel Laureate Professor Ivar Giaever, who won the Nobel Prize for Physics in 1973.