| 1857 |
Evan Pugh's nitrogen research leads to development of nitrogen fertilizer industry. Pugh proves that plant nitrogen come from the soil and not the air. |
| 1907 |
Department of Metallurgical Engineering established |
| 1931 |
Penn State physicist Ferdinand Brickwedde produces the world's first measurable amount of deuterium, a hydrogen isotope needed to make "heavy water," an essential ingredient in basic atomic research. |
| 1937 |
Chemistry professor Russell Marker discovers the first practical synthesis of the pregnancy hormone progesterone, providing the foundation for such important medical applications as the birth control pill, cortisones, and hormone and steroid therapies. |
| 1955 |
Professor of physics Erwin Mueller invents the atom- probe field ion microscope and becomes the first person to "see" an atom. |
| 1960 |
Penn State establishes the nation's first interdisciplinary curriculum in solid state (materials) technology. |
| 1962 |
Materials Research Laboratory opens as one of the first independent interdisciplinary research laboratories, and goes on to win international acclaim in materials synthesis, electroceramics, diamond films and chemically bonded ceramics. |
| 1980s |
While working at Bell Labs, Dave Allara, Penn State professor of chemistry, shows that organic surfaces can be ordered, opening the field of self-assembled monolayers (SAMs), and making it possible to design surfaces at the molecular level. |
| 1992 |
AW Castleman discovers the metallocarbohedrene (metcar), titanium carbide nanoclusters. |
| 1994 |
Penn State wins NSF competition to become one of five universities in the National Nanofabrication Users Network. |
| 1996 |
With James Tour of the University of South Carolina ( now at Rice University), Penn State professors Dave Allara and Paul Weiss first demonstrate that molecular wires can conduct electricity. |
| 2001 |
Amat Hatzor in the Weiss Group uses organic molecules as "molecular rulers" to pattern sub-10 nanometer features. |
| 2002 |
Penn State Center for Nanoscale Science is established as a National Science Foundation Materials Research Science and Engineering Center. |
| 2004 |
Lahktakia Group develops materials with reverse refraction characteristics. |
| 2004 |
Researchers in Penn State Center for Nanoscale Science, including Walter Paxson, Ayusman Sen, Tom Mallouk, and Vincent Crespi develop the world's first nanoscale inorganic motor driven by catalysis. |
| 2005 |
Weiss Group learn how to create a single-molecule molecular switch. |
| 2006 |
John Badding and colleagues develop a method to grow semiconductors inside optical fibers. |
| 2007-2009 |
Construction is scheduled to begin on a $120M Materials/Life Sciences complex, enabling multidisciplinary research at the interface of materials and biology at the nanoscale. |
