5.22.24
Zhuoying Lin
Zhuoying Lin
The Kavli Energy NanoScience Institute [ENSI] at UC Berkeley celebrates ten years of scientific excellence in nanoscience.
When nanoscience emerged in the 1980s, it soon became one of the most invested research concepts in the 21st century. The size-dependent, performance-enhancing properties of nanomaterials has made them applicable to almost every field of science, leading to advancement in applications ranging from quantum dot TVs to energy conversion and storage applications.
“Nanoscience has become the central part of modern science over the last four decades,” said Peidong Yang, Professor of Chemistry at UC Berkeley and the director of the Kavli Energy NanoScience Institute (Kavli ENSI). “It fundamentally changes our daily life and technology, yet there is still a lot more to explore.”
Since 2014, Kavli ENSI has aimed to leverage nanoscience to tackle global energy challenges in the 21st century for a more sustainable future. This involves drawing inspiration from nature’s elegant mechanisms such as exploring how photosynthesis captures plentiful energy and engineering nanomaterials into devices that resemble natural processes. With this vision in mind, Kavli ENSI has summoned a highly interdisciplinary team comprising 22 prominent research groups from UC Berkeley and Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory to create innovative approaches in energy conversion and application.
From designing enzyme-inspired metal organic frameworks (MOF) as catalysts for CO2 conversion, synthesizing nanomotors motivated by biological molecular motors to engineering nanowire-bacteria hybrids for artificial photosynthesis, Kavli ENSI scientists have achieved significant breakthroughs towards transformative applications. Research has also expanded lately to study and design quantum materials such as topological insulators for quantum computing.
“Over the ten years, Kavli ENSI scientists have been pushing the boundaries and have made significant breakthroughs in broadly defined energy nanoscience. There are many exciting examples, from light harvesting MOF, photosynthetic biohybrids, Wigner crystals, to materials discovery based on artificial intelligence,” Yang said.
The mission at Kavli ENSI
“The energy and environmental challenges we face today are not something we can solve in this generation; it requires collective effort from one generation to another,” Yang said. “At ENSI, we are committed to training next-generation scientists for cutting-edge research.”
As one of the biggest achievements, Kavli ENSI has successfully empowered numerous young scientists to become independent investigators in esteemed research institutes through the Heising-Simons Junior Fellowship program. Former fellows, including Professor Cong Su (Yale University), Professor Shaowei Li (UC San Diego), and Archana Raja (Lawrence Berkeley Lab) showcased their ongoing research at the 10th anniversary symposium. Archana, the very first Heising-Simons Junior Fellow awarded in 2016, has recently been selected as a faculty member at Kavli ENSI.
“The talks given by our former and current students were fantastic, everyone was impressed. It really showcased the creativity of our young ENSI graduate and postdoc fellows,” Yang said.
Kavli ENSI fosters a unique learning environment to support graduate student training through science education and outreach. The monthly research seminar provides a platform for graduate students to present their research that facilitates intellectual exchange, while an annual, full-day conference will be hosted as a networking retreat for faculty and students within the Kavli community. In addition, the institute has established an international exchange program with the Winton Program for the Physics of Sustainability at the University of Cambridge, which encourages students to work on research projects of their interest at the host university.
“It’s been a great partnership with The Kavli Foundation and Berkeley Lab,” Yang affirmed. “We will continue to support our next generation scientists and advance fundamental research in energy nanoscience.”
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The Kavli Foundation based in Oxnard, California is dedicated to the goals of advancing science for the benefit of humanity and promoting increased public understanding and support for scientists and their work.
The Foundation’s mission is implemented through an international program of research institutes; professorships; and symposia in the fields of astrophysics; nanoscience; neuroscience; and theoretical physics as well as prizes in the fields of astrophysics; nanoscience; and neuroscience.
The Kavli Foundation was established in December 2000 by its founder and benefactor Fred Kavli a Norwegian business leader and philanthropist who made his money by creating Kavlico- a company that made sensors; and by investing in real estate in southern California and Nevada. David Auston, a former president of Case Western Reserve University and former Bell Labs scientist, was the first president of the Kavli Foundation and is largely credited with the vision of the scientific investments. Kavli died in 2013 and his foundation is currently actively involved in establishing research institutes at universities throughout the United States, in Europe, and in Asia.
To date, the Kavli Foundation has made grants to establish Kavli Institutes on the campuses of 16 major universities. In addition to the Kavli Institutes, ten Kavli professorships have been established: three at Harvard University, two at University of California, Santa Barbara, one each at University of California, Los Angeles, University of California, Irvine, Columbia University, Cornell University, and the California Institute of Technology.
The Kavli Institutes
Astrophysics
The Kavli Institute for Particle Astrophysics and Cosmology at Stanford University
The Kavli Institute for Cosmological Physics, University of Chicago
The Kavli Institute for Astrophysics and Space Research at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology
The Kavli Institute for Astronomy and Astrophysics at The Peking University [北京大学](CN)
The Kavli Institute for Cosmology at The University of Cambridge (UK)
The Kavli Institute for the Physics and Mathematics of the Universe at The University of Tokyo[(東京大] (JP)
Nanoscience
The Kavli Institute for Nanoscale Science at Cornell University
The Kavli Institute of Nanoscience at The Delft University of Technology [Technische Universiteit Delft](NL)
The Kavli Nanoscience Institute at The California Institute of Technology
The Kavli Institute for Bionano Science and Technology at Harvard University
The Kavli Energy NanoSciences Institute at The University of California-Berkeley and The DOE’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory
Neuroscience
The Kavli Institute for Brain Science at Columbia University
The Kavli Institute for Brain & Mind at The University of California-San Diego
The Kavli Institute for Neuroscience at Yale University
The Kavli Institute for Systems Neuroscience at The Norwegian University of Science and Technology [Norges teknisk-naturvitenskapelige universitet](NO)
The Kavli Neuroscience Discovery Institute at The Johns Hopkins University
The Kavli Neural Systems Institute at The Rockefeller University
The Kavli Institute for Fundamental Neuroscience at The University of California-San Francisco
Theoretical physics
Kavli Institute for Theoretical Physics at The University of California-Santa Barbara
The Kavli Institute for Theoretical Physics China at The Chinese Academy of Sciences [中国科学院](CN)
