In its first gift to the University of California, Davis, the W.M. Keck Foundation has granted the College of Engineering $600,000 for equipment that will enable researchers to build and explore materials with architectures as small as one billionth of a meter -- a fifth the size of a human hair. Subhash H. Risbud, professor and director of the Materials Research Center at UC Davis, and Bruce C. Gates, senior professor in the chemical engineering and materials science department, will use the Keck funds to purchase a new solid-state nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) spectrometer to help them understand the fundamentals of what these materials are and how they can be made. The solid-state nuclear magnetic resonance spectrometer will be the first of its kind on the Davis campus and will be housed in a dedicated facility to be named the W.M. Keck Foundation Solid-State NMR Laboratory. The minute objects of research are called "nanoclusters" and have unique characteristics directly related to their size. Already used on a large scale as industrial catalysts, converting chemicals without creating polluting byproducts, nanoclusters may one day influence the development of technologies ranging from portable lasers to supercomputers. "Nanoclusters are new kinds of materials that are neither fish nor fowl. They have structures and properties in between those of molecules and bulk solids," said Gates. "NMR spectroscopy is just what we need to advance the understanding of these fascinating new materials." Materials undergo dramatic changes in properties when they reach the nanometer dimensions, behaving less like bulk matter and more like molecules. Risbud's research group has discovered, for example, that silicon nanoclusters trapped in glass emit colors that vary according to the size of the nanocluster. Larger nanoclusters emit colors with longer wavelengths -- toward the red end of the spectrum -- whereas smaller nanoclusters emit blue and green, colors with shorter wavelengths. By adjusting the size of the nanoclusters, the researchers have found that they can control the wavelength of light they emit. This phenomenon may one day have applications in light-emitting devices, optical switches and other components for telecommunications and computers. The key to understanding nanoclusters, say Risbud and Gates, is creating samples that are identical in size and structure so that the dependence of cluster properties on these attributes can be determined. The two researchers will use novel synthesis methods to prepare uniform, structurally unique nanoclusters. One such method involves the preparation of nanoclusters trapped in cages of materials called "molecular sieves." The confinement of a cage limits the size of what can form in it, and the narrowness of the apertures connecting the cages keeps the nanoclusters trapped inside. The Gates research group has made structurally unique nanoclusters consisting of only four metal atoms each dispersed on the surfaces of porous solids. These nanoclusters are as small as any that have been made. Their performance as catalysts is different from what has been observed for metal nanoclusters that are only several times larger. Nanoclusters hold promise as a new class of catalytic materials. Solid-state NMR spectroscopy detects structural features at the atomic and molecular levels, making it a powerful tool for the characterization of nanoclusters. It will be used in conjunction with complementary techniques such as transmission electron microscopy, X-ray absorption spectroscopy, and scanning tunneling microscopy, with each method providing a clue to the structure of the material being investigated. The Los Angeles-based W.M. Keck Foundation is one of the nation's largest private grant-giving organizations. It was founded in 1954 by the late William M. Keck, founder of Superior Oil Co. Higher education, medical research and science are the foundation's primary areas of interest.