Nanoscience and Nanotechnology at the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology

Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology We are pleased to introduce a new virtual issue in ACS Nano featuring research at the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST). Established in 1971 by the Korean government to educate engineers and elite scientists and to contribute to economic growth and industrialization, KAIST is the first and top science and technology university in Korea. Initially, the Korea Advanced Institute of Science (KAIS, a graduate program) was established in Hongneung Campus, Seoul. In 1984, the Korea Institute of Technology (KIT) was established to create an undergraduate program in Daejeon. Finally, KAIST was relocated to Daejeon by merging with the Korea Institute of Technology in 1989 (Figure 1). Since then, KAIST and its 61,125 graduates have opened up the gateways to advanced science and technology, innovation, and entrepreneurship. KAIST has emerged as one of the most innovative universities with more than 11,688 students enrolled in five colleges and six schools, including 915 international students from 92 countries. In 2018, Thomson Reuters named KAIST the 11th most innovative university in the world and the most innovative university in the Asia Pacific region. The 2018 QS World University Rankings ranked KAIST 40th overall in the world. Times Higher Education ranked KAIST the sixth best university in the world under the age of 50 years in its 2018 league table. We now have the opportunity to think boldly about the goals that KAIST can achieve over the next half century and beyond. Under “Vision 2031”, KAIST continues to make the world better through the pursuit of excellence in education, research, entrepreneurship, and globalization. KAIST’s nanoscience and nanotechnology research is predominantly led by four departments: materials science and engineering (MSE), chemical and biomolecular engineering (CBE), electrical engineering (EE), and chemistry. Among those departments, MSE has 28 full-time professors with 425 students, with a focus on understanding how material structures and chemical composition at the micro-, nano-, and atomic scales are related to their properties, including electrical, optical, mechanical, magnetic, and thermal behavior. Using such relationships, new compounds, phases, microand nanostructures, and devices with novel properties, highperformance, and tuned functionalities are made. As such, MSE has focused on multiscale structure−property relationships with more emphasis on nanoscale science and technology since 2006. We take pride in the fact that our faculty members are hosting Big Emerging Ideas, The KAIST Lectures in Materials Science & Engineering and the Asia-Pacific Piezoresponse Force Microscopy Workshop 2019. In 2017, 2018, and 2019, QS World University Rankings (an annual publication of university rankings by Quacquarelli Symonds) placed MSE 13th, 13th, and 17th, respectively, globally in Materials Science. Since 2011, its rank has jumped up from 42nd to 13th. In pursuing world top 10 universities rankings for materials science and engineering, nanotechnology and nanoscience have been core research activities of MSE at KAIST and will remain so for the coming years. With strong government support via a grant named “R&E Initiative for Emerging Materials-Based Creative Convergence”, MSE has made strong efforts in the four major thrust areas: “ICT− Display Material/Device”, “Sustainable Energy System”, “Flexible Material/Device System”, and “Materials/Device for Ubiquitous-Healthcare”. It cannot be overemphasized that nanotechnology and nanoscience are essential in advancing these thrusts.