Cornell Professor of Electrical Engineering Joseph M. Ballantyne has been named the Lester B. Knight Director of the Cornell Nanofabrication Facility.

A member of the Cornell faculty since 1964 and founding director of the university's first microelectronics fabrication facility, Ballantyne takes over from Noel C. MacDonald, who is on leave-of-absence from the faculty to direct the federal DARPA (Defense Advance Research Projects Agency) Electronic Technology Office.

"Joe Ballantyne is ideally suited to head the facility as Cornell, through the national network, takes a national and international leadership role in the enhancement of nanotechnologies," said Norman R. Scott, Cornell vice president for research and advanced studies, in announcing the appointment. "He has a clear vision of the major impacts nanotechnologies will have on society and believes CNF will continue to build a legacy of scientific achievement."

The Cornell Nanofabrication Facility (CNF) serves as a research and instructional center for the application of man-made nanostructures in a broad range of disciplines, including emerging uses in biological and medical sciences, materials research, physics and chemistry, as well as engineering applications in microelectronics, optics, and the new area of microelectromechanical structures (MEMS). One of two principal sites in the five-site, university-based, National Nanofabrication Users Network (NNUN) supported by the National Science Foundation, CNF formerly was the National Nanofabrication Facility and before that, the National Research and Resource Facility for Submicron Structures.

CNF is located in Knight Laboratory at the Cornell College of Engineering and serves some 200 research groups and 450 users annually, who come from universities and corporations throughout the United States, including about 210 student researchers and faculty members from the Cornell colleges of Engineering, Arts and Sciences, Agriculture and Life Sciences, and Veterinary Medicine.

Prior to becoming director of the School of Electrical Engineering (1980-84), Ballantyne, in 1976, organized the winning bid for the National Research and Resource Facility for Submicron Structures, the first national laboratory of its kind in the United States and the world, and he served as its acting director the first year. Key to Cornell's success in this competition was an interdisciplinary vision, stemming from the Cornell Materials Science Center, a vision that has become the hallmark of the current national network (NNUN).

Ballantyne served as university vice president for research and advanced studies from 1984 through 1989, before returning to teaching and research in the School of Electrical Engineering. His research focuses on the synthesis and characterization of III-V compound materials for optical devices and on the design, construction and testing of optoelectronic devices and circuits. He earned bachelor's degrees in mathematics and electrical engineering (1959) from University of Utah, as well as a master's degree (1960) and Ph.D. (1964) in electrical engineering from Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

An elected fellow of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, Ballantyne has been a consultant to more than 20 companies and several universities. He will continue as director of the SRC (Semiconductor Research Corp.) Center of Excellence in Microscience and Technology.