A Clean Room, 5G Wireless and NYU Tandon’s Tech Progress – The Bridge
How clean is a “cleanroom”? Incredibly spotless. Brooklyn’s first cleanroom, built for scientific research, was unveiled this week at the NYU Tandon School of Engineering, where educators and public officials donned white suits and hats to explore the pristine facility. Inside, the lab will maintain an environment of fewer than 1,000 particles larger than 0.5 microns per million. To put it in civilian terms, a normal environment has 100 times more dust and pollutants.
The lab, dubbed the NanoFab CleanRoom, is a 2,300 sq. ft. facility that was more than three years in the planning. It will enable scientists and engineers to work on an extremely tiny scale, experimenting in such fields as nanotechnology, quantum computing, and minute biosensors that could revolutionize medicine.
Till now, NYU researchers have been using cleanrooms at Columbia University and CUNY, both in Manhattan. Some of that work will move to Brooklyn’s new facility, which will be available for outside researchers as well, including the borough’s many tech startups. The cleanroom was funded in part with $1 million from the office of Brooklyn Borough President Eric Adams, as well as a $2.5 million grant from the Dormitory Authority of the State of New York (DASNY).