McGill Professor Wins Major Canadian Science Award

Big prize for small-world specialist

(Ottawa, Ontario) – Dr. Peter Grütter's research goal is as fine-pointed as his high-tech microscopes: "I want to build and operate instruments at the absolute limits given by nature," says the McGill University physicist.

In so doing, he's setting the scientific groundwork for the development of nanotechnologies. It's world-leading research for which Dr. Grütter was recently awarded a 2001 NSERC Steacie Fellowship – one of Canada's premier science and engineering prizes.

The award is one of six announced today by The Honourable Brian Tobin, Minister of Industry and Minister responsible for the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council (NSERC), and Dr. Tom Brzustowski, President of NSERC.

"With the NSERC Steacie Fellowships, six of our best scientists and engineers will do what they do best – pushing forward the frontiers of innovative research and improving the quality of our lives," said Minister Tobin. "Dr. Grütter's pioneering research in nanotechnology is admired by colleagues the world over. This NSERC Steacie Fellowship will give him two full years to pursue further breakthroughs in what is one of today's most exciting fields."

There is currently lots of media buzz about the potential for nanoscale devices in applications from computing to medicine. But, very little is actually known about the behaviour of matter at the tiniest of levels.

"There's a lot of speculation but very little hard evidence," says Dr. Grütter who grew up in Switzerland, Chile and South Africa.

He and his research team of nine graduate students and three postdoctoral fellows are working to change that. They're measuring the atomic-scale physical characteristics of matter. For example, how does squishing a molecule, as could happen in the making of a nanodevice, change its electrical properties?

A key area of his current research focus, one that he'll continue to pursue as an NSERC Steacie Fellow, is measuring the electron transport properties of individual molecules – an important factor in the potential creation of nanoelectronic devices.

To date, researchers have been severely limited in accurately doing this because they haven't been able to define the nanoscale contact wires that deliver and receive electrons to the intermediary molecule.

"The Achilles heel in nanoelectronics is how to make these atomically defined contact wires," says Dr. Grütter. "It's not obvious at all that the properties of the system are due to the molecule and not a combination of the molecule and the contact leads."

To solve this problem, Dr. Grütter's Montreal lab has custom built a unique device to measure the individual components of a nanoscale electronic system. Involving a combination of three nanoscale microscopy techniques, the device allows the researchers to atomically view, manipulate and measure the behaviour of the contact leads.

Not that it works quickly, or simply. Given the challenges involved – operating at near absolute zero temperature and in an ultra-high vacuum – it can take months to get a single result and, notes Dr. Grütter, can be "a pain in the neck," to operate.

But, for a physicist probing the fundamental properties of matter, each individual result is worth the wait.

"Once everything works, it's so well defined that you get a measurement and you know exactly what it means – there's no room for speculation," says Dr. Grütter.

Breaking down barriers: Dr. Peter Grütter is used to "poking" matter at its smallest levels with an atomic force microscope (AFM). Now, the McGill University physicist, and 2001 NSERC Steacie Fellow, is collaborating with medical researchers at Montreal's Meakins Christie Chest Hospital to study what asthma-related cells feel like. In this respiratory disease, some lung cells become too soft. Dr. Grütter will use the AFM to determine exactly where the cells soften, offering doctors new therapeutic targets. For the physicist, this switch to the life sciences doesn't feel like foreign territory. Says Dr. Grütter, "At the nanometer level, the traditional boundaries between physics, chemistry, engineering and the life sciences vanish."

The Prize: NSERC Steacie Fellowships are awarded to the most outstanding Canadian university scientists or engineers who have earned their doctorate within the last twelve years. Nominations are received by NSERC from universities across Canada and judged by a distinguished panel of independent experts. The award includes a payment to McGill University towards Dr. Grütter's salary, and increased research funding from NSERC, freeing him to pursue his research full-time.

The five other award winners this year are:
Dr. Simaan AbouRizk (University of Alberta);
Dr. Ben Koop (University of Victoria);
Dr. Arokia Nathan (University of Waterloo);
Dr. Sarah Otto (University of British Columbia); and
Dr. Warren Piers (University of Calgary).

Contacts:

Dr. Peter Grütter, (514) 398-2567, grutter@physics.mcgill.ca.

Francis Lionnet, NSERC, at (613) 992-9001, fzl@nserc.ca.