Nano Technology Lab Process: a Utah Valley University VR game

Students practice the steps for making nanotechnology circuit boards in a virtual lab. Three modules existed at the time of the finalist listing: Photolithography, Scanning Electron Microscope (SEM) and Plasma Etching, with more possible.

Each player signs in and logs into the lab. A clock counts down the time for the process and, as time runs short, the room lights flash. A whiteboard shows the final grade at the end, and a player may run the simulation as often as needed to reach mastery.

In the photolithography module the player uses a spin-coater, which spreads a fluid evenly across a wafer, and a hot plate to bake the coating. A mask aligner then holds a patterned circuit mask and projects the pattern onto the wafer with a timed UV light blast, after which the wafer goes into a solution to finish developing. The plasma etching module covers RF plasma created from a neutral gas in a low vacuum chamber.

A typical nanotechnology lab costs from several thousand to hundreds of thousands of dollars, and each lab needs expensive machines and materials. Many universities have only one set, so a single student can run an experiment at a time, and inexperienced and experienced users alike risk damaging costly material. The VR equipment needed is far cheaper.

This was the second year of a three-year project. Utah Valley University received a $704,000 grant from the National Science Foundation to develop a nanotechnology program. Physics professor Paul Weber described the aim as making students familiar and confident with the equipment before they enter the lab. Weber said the simulations built by the digital media team look very much like the real instruments. Students learn techniques such as photolithography, where patterns are etched and transferred onto a silicon wafer, a step used in making microchips. A new nanotechnology course was to start in the Spring 2020 semester, and the university's lab was to include a novel water-based photolithography technique that avoids the harmful solvents of conventional methods.

The Digital Media Department's old address, uvu.edu/dgm, now shows a notice that the site moved to uvu.edu/digitalmedia. The department's current front page does not mention the game, and no official page offering Nano Technology Lab Process was found. A web search surfaced papers and a patent on VR nanofabrication at the university, but no page offering the game itself.

The status is therefore unconfirmed in November 2026.