For Associate Professor of Chemistry Matt Côté, it's the little things that count. Really little things -- objects measured in billionths of a meter.

Nanotechnology, a field that involves the understanding and manipulation of materials on that unimaginably tiny scale, poses exciting possibilities for medicine, engineering and many other disciplines. But it also poses distinctive problems.

For instance, the optical spectrometers that scientists often use to identify substances depend on light waves for their operation. But because of the physical nature of light, objects smaller than a micron — one-millionth of a meter — can't be studied individually with an optical spectrometer.

Instruments called scanned probe microscopes enable the study of the shapes and sizes of such structures, but provide only limited information about their chemical makeup. So Côté and his students are researching techniques that may offer the best of both worlds — "augmenting the spatial information provided by scanned probe microscopy with chemical information usually obtained with spectrometers," he explains.

Such an interest makes Côté's appointment as director of Bates' new Imaging and Computing Center seem like a natch. The center, opening in January 2007 in Coram Library, brings together a wide variety of imaging technologies. In so doing, it will also bring together students and faculty from the many disciplines, from art to economics to neuroscience, dependent on the tremendous power of the image.

Bates has "worked hard to break down perceived barriers between disciplines," says Côté. "The Imaging Center fits in perfectly with that."