Reshaping Yale for a new wave of quantum physics, engineering, and materials

Excerpted from Yale News 

Future generations of Yale quantum scientists, engineers, and physicists likely won’t know the details of the monumental effort underway today to reshape the upper slope of Science Hill on campus. But they — and society at large — will reap the benefits.

As university leaders and state and local officials gathered Sept. 30 for a ceremonial groundbreaking of the new Physical Sciences and Engineering Building (PSEB) — the centerpiece of the new Upper Science Hill Building Complex — they described a future manifesting in plain sight, with construction cranes and excavators briefly paused just yards away.

As you can see, all around us, Science Hill is being transformed,” said Yale President Maurie McInnis. “This building we’re breaking ground on today will be the crown jewel of the Upper Science Hill Development. It is fundamental to the work we are doing to accelerate science and engineering at Yale.”

The overall project is vast, covering 16 acres — or nearly half — of Science Hill. It will transform research programs, help attract more of the best scientists and students, lower Yale’s energy use, and accelerate discoveries across a range of fields, from quantum computing and materials science to electrical engineering and high energy physics. It may ultimately help grow the state and local economies, as well.

Specifically, it involves building out more than 630,000 square feet of space overall, with nearly 472,000 square feet reserved for research and collaboration. The complex of buildings includes a new Physical Sciences and Engineering Building (PSEB), an Advanced Instrumentation Design Center, a “clean room” located within PSEB for specialized experiments, an addition to Wright Laboratory, core facilities space for materials science and nanoscience research, a new chemical safety building, and a state-of-the-art geothermal energy plant that will heat and cool as many as eight adjacent university buildings.

“We are launching one of the most significant building projects in Yale’s history,” said Provost Scott Strobel, who led the University Science Strategy Committee that in 2018 identified quantum science and related areas of engineering and materials science as a priority — and major opportunity — for Yale.

“The things that will be done here, the science we will do, will be completely new to the universe,” said Sterling Professor of Applied Physics and of physics Robert Schoelkopf, one of Yale’s leading quantum researchers. “Quantum science is so popular right now that we haven’t been able to accommodate all the amazing students who want to come here and be part of it.”

Demolition of the existing chemical safety building and the Pierson Sage Parking Garage is set for next summer and fall, followed by demolition of Wright Lab-West and the Wright Lab electron accelerator lab in 2026.

The second phase of construction will commence with the new thermal plant in 2025 (scheduled for completion in 2028) and the six-floor PSEB complex in 2026 (expected in 2030). A new parking garage, located on Whitney Avenue, will be finished in 2026.

A new, 10,000-square-foot clean room will be incorporated into the PSEB structure. The facility will enable Yale researchers across all disciplines to have access to the latest technologies for nanofabrication.

“This will be a transformational project that brings together departments and crosses boundaries,” said Karsten Heeger, the Eugene Higgins Professor and Chair of Physics in Yale’s Faculty of Arts and Sciences (FAS) and faculty co-chair of the project with Sohrab Ismail-Beigi, the Strathcona Professor of Applied Physics and professor of physics and mechanical engineering and materials science at Yale’s School of Engineering & Applied Science.

“It is vitally important to fundamental science in both FAS and Yale Engineering, as we become one of the premiere locations for quantum science and engineering,” Heeger said. Alongside the cutting-edge science features are innovative sustainability elements, including the field of geothermal boreholes now being drilled at the site.

The holes, each one at least 800 feet deep, are being created with a new, angled drilling technique in which boreholes are drilled both vertically and at angles radiating out from a central “spine” to areas well beneath existing and future structures. Once finished, the Science Hill geothermal grid will connect to nearby buildings and the new thermal utilities plant, providing 14,000 MBH (One MBH equals 1,000 BTUs per hour) of hot water production.

The geothermal network and thermal plant will dramatically advance Yale’s climate action goals and further the efforts of Yale Planetary Solutions (the university-wide initiative created to amplify and drive solutions to the world’s most urgent climate and environmental threats), using electric equipment to circulate water, replacing steam. The system will send heat to the underground borefield during the summer months and pull heat from the ground in winter — lowering total energy use on Science Hill by a projected 20% and reducing central campus emissions by a projected 15%.

Other sustainable aspects of the project include:

• replacing 57,000 gallons of diesel fuel used in the excavation of the Chemical Safety Building site with R-99, a recycled and filtered cooking oil fuel;
• replacing up to 30% of the cement in the concrete mix for PSEB with a ground glass industry byproduct, called pozzolan, reducing carbon emissions in the production of concrete. (Another industry byproduct, slag, will replace half of the Portland cement already poured for the Chemical Safety Building. Both moves reduce the amount of cement that needs to be produced and keep more material out of landfills.); and
• crushing and reusing excavated rock for backfill and landscaping.

PSEB will include a café and a seminar/event pavilion to help build communities of scholarly collaboration; its second floor will have three types of lab configurations and be 100,000 square feet larger than the concourse level of the nearby Yale Science Building, completed in 2019; and the main spine of PSEB will be a “terraced street” that stretches 420 feet.

But the main attractions for the Upper Science Hill Building Complex are all about the future of science — and McInnis, for one, can’t wait to get started.