https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/d3yppm/i-saw-the-future-in-columbias-nanotechnology-clean-room

If you ever want to feel like a mad scientist, I highly recommend spending a day in a clean room.

I got the chance to spend an afternoon at Columbia University's Clean Room, a newly renovated $20 million facility for nanoscience projects so sensitive that one spare particle can ruin them. Researchers are transmitting data using light, developing lidar (light-radar) for driverless cars, and creating 2D "superatoms" that can represent quantum behavior.