Shared Materials Instrumentation Facility (SMIF) includes advanced characterization facilities and clean rooms for analysis and fabrication of advanced materials and devices. In the Fall of 2012, a Small Angle X-Ray Scattering (SAXS) Instrument will be added to the facility.

This Facility is managed by the UCSB Materials Department, which is separate from the MRL. External users wishing to access this facility should contact one of the Facility Managers below with inquiries.

Facility Director

Professor Tresa Pollock

Facility Managers

tmates [at] mrl [dot] ucsb [dot] edu (Dr. Tom Mates)	Secondary Ion Mass Spectrometry (SIMS) X-ray Photoelectron Spectroscopy (XPS) LEAP 3000X HR Atom Probe
cornish [at] engineering [dot] ucsb [dot] edu (Mr. Mark Cornish)	Scanning Electron Microscopes Transmission Electron Microscopes (TEM) Technical Manager Sample preparation Atomic Force Microscopes (AFM), Technical Manager Accounting
skraemer [at] engineering [dot] ucsb [dot] edu (Dr. Stephan Kraemer)	Focus Ion Beam Microscopes (FIB), Technical Manager Transmission Electron Microscopes (TEM), Technical Manager TEM sample preparation TEM sample preparation using FIB High Resolution TEM, Analytical Techniques

Facility Location

1st Floor of CNSI Building

Shared facilities operated by the Nebraska Center for Materials and Nanoscience (NCMN). The Facility provides state-of-the-art instruments for fabricating material samples and devices. The primary focus of the facility is on nanostructuring by using thin film deposition and multi-layering. The facility has 2 thin film deposition systems which can deposit sub nanometer thick films in which 2 or more materials can be layered together in different order to form a multilayer structure. The properties of such samples or devices will depend on the actual intrinsic property of the nanostructuring such as how the materials interact through the interfaces. The facility also provides systems to alloy materials together to study the bulk material properties.

Our fully equipped student machine shop plays a vital role in the training of MRSEC members, from undergraduates and REU students to postdocs. The shop gives MRSEC students the flexibility to easily design and safely produce machined parts and research prototypes. Main equipment includes several Bridgeport mills, Hardinge lathes, a CADworkstation and a welding station. The shop has been tremendously successful over the last several years due to the availability of highly motivated, exceptionally qualified staff for consultation and training. Training classes on machine operation and safety are regularly offered during the year (passing of this class is a prerequisite for working in the student shop). Purchase of an industrial-strength Tormach PCNC milling machine was recently completed. Acquisitions of radius stressors for a surface grinder and an indexing head capable of measuring within 1 degree are planned.

X-Ray Diffraction The facility consists of two computer-controlled Siemens x-ray diffractometers. One has a thin-film glancing angle attachment, high temperature capabilities in both air and vacuum (up to 2000ºC), and is equipped with a Laue camera. The other is a high-resolution system used primarily for rocking curve measurements on epitaxial films and other monocrystalline specimens. Director Sheldon is currently converting this facility to a University Cost Center, where users are charged on a per sample basis. This facility is used by researchers from Engineering, Physics, Chemistry, Geology, and the Division of Biology and Medicine.

This facility provides central scientific computing resources and infrastructure support. It provides consultation support for the users of the roughly 120 independently-run scientific computers, maintains a dedicated cluster of three 48-core nodes for batched medium-scale computations, and maintains five other computer clusters dedicated for specific simulation projects. It provides a central home directory server, web server, email server, and print server, used actively by about 180 users.

Research computing at Princeton University engages academic departments and disciplines across the natural sciences, engineering, social sciences, and humanities. The Princeton Institute for Computational Science and Engineering (PICSciE) and the Office of Information Technology (OIT) work together to provide the computational and digital data infrastructure and support that meet the research needs and priorities of Princeton's faculty, researchers, and students. The resources and services we provide centrally include computational and visualization hardware, software, system administration, programming, and visualization support. Please browse these pages for information about the outstanding research and central and departmental resources supporting research computing at Princeton University.

Advanced Research Computing, a division of ITS, provides access to and support for advanced computing resources. ARC facilitates new and more powerful approaches to research challenges in fields ranging from physics to linguistics, and from engineering to medicine.

Location: Singh Center For Nanotechnology
Coordinator: Prof. Robert W. Carpick
Contact Person(s):
Matthew Brukman (microscope) [email protected]
Ritesh Agarwal (ultrafast laser) [email protected]

With matching support from LRSM and other sources, Penn received a $630,000 NSF MRI grant in 2009 to acquire a multifunctional nanoprobe microscope for imaging and spectroscopy of materials. The system combines atomic force microscopy (AFM), near-field scanning optical microscopy (NSOM) and confocal Raman microscopy in a single, multifunctional instrument to enable a broad and powerful array of micro- and nanoscale microscopy and spectroscopy studies. The light sources for the NSOM and Raman components involves a standard laser source as well as a compact, turnkey tunable laser. This tunable laser provides two important capabilities: (1) tunable output wavelength from 350 – 1080 nm, for a broad range of spectroscopy experiments; and (2) femtosecond operation for time-resolved measurements of dynamic nanoscale phenomena. It can function in combination with the microscope for custom spectromicroscopy experiments, but can also be used as a stand-alone laser source for powerful spectroscopy studies of nanostructures and other materials when not needed for microscopy studies, thus maximizing its use. This shared instrumentation is designated as a SEF within the LRSM. The tunable laser along with significant supporting optics was purchased from Coherent. It has been installed and integrated with an existing spectroscopy platform for versatile experimentation. The system is functioning and available for use. It is currently installed in a lab within the Singh Center for Nanotechnology, directly across the hall from the instruments in the NanoCharacterization Facility, another LRSM SEF. The laboratory was specifically designed to accommodate this instrumentation. The lab includes vibration and EMI isolation, low and quiet air flow, and enhanced temperature control all to enhance the performance of this instrumentation. Several groups are making use of the instrumentation on an ongoing basis. This instrumentation is co-supported by the Singh Center for Nanotechnology, which is supported by the NSF National Nanotechnology Coordinated Infrastructure Program under grant NNCI-2025608.