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THE
NATION’S PREMIER SCIENTIFIC USER FACILITIES
FOR INTERDISCIPLINARY RESEARCH AT THE NANOSCALE
The Department of Energy’s Office
of Science is pioneering the new field of nanoscience,
the study of matter at the atomic scale.
Nanomaterials -- typically on the scale
of billionths of a meter or 10,000 times smaller than
a human hair (see The
Scale of Things) -- offer different chemical and
physical properties than bulk materials, and have the
potential to form the basis of new technologies.
Understanding these properties may allow
researchers to design materials with properties
tailored to specific needs such as strong, lightweight
materials, new lubricants and more efficient solar energy
cells. By building structures one atom at a time, the
materials may have enhanced mechanical, optical, electrical
or catalytic properties.
To support the synthesis, processing,
fabrication and analysis at the nanoscale, the DOE Office
of Science is developing, constructing and operating
five new Nanoscale Science Research Centers (NSRCs).
When complete, these five DOE Office of
Science Nanoscale Science Research Centers will provide
the Nation with resources unmatched anywhere else in
the world:
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The
Center for Nanoscale Materials
Argonne National Laboratory
Argonne, Illinois
(initial operations, April 2006; full operations,
April 2007) |
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The
Center for Functional Nanomaterials
Brookhaven National Laboratory
Upton, New York
(initial operations, April 2007; full operations,
April 2008) |
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The
Molecular Foundry
Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory
Berkeley, California
(initial operations, May 2006; full operations,
December 2006)
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The
Center for Nanophase Materials Sciences
Oak Ridge National Laboratory
Oak Ridge, Tennessee
(began initial operations, October 2005; full operations,
October 2006) |
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The
Center For Integrated Nanotechnologies
Sandia National Laboratories and
Los Alamos National Laboratory
Albuquerque, New Mexico
(initial operations, April 2006; full operations,
May 2007) |
The Centers are part of DOE’s contribution
to the National Nanotechnology
Initiative, and they form an integrated network.
These facilities are designed to be the Nation’s
premier user centers for interdisciplinary research
at the nanoscale, serving as the basis for a national
program that encompasses new science, new tools and
new computing capabilities.
Each Center will focus on a different
area of nanoscale research, such as materials derived
from or inspired by nature; hard and crystalline materials,
including the structure of macromolecules; magnetic
and soft materials, including polymers and ordered structures
in fluids; and nanotechnology integration.
Each Center is being housed in a new laboratory
building near one or more existing Office of Science
facilities for X-ray, neutron or electron scattering.
The five Centers are being located to take advantage
of the complementary capabilities of other large scientific
facilities, such as the Spallation Neutron Source at
Oak Ridge, the synchrotron light sources at Argonne,
Brookhaven and Lawrence Berkeley, and semiconductor,
microelectronics and combustion research facilities
at Sandia and Los Alamos.
The new Center buildings will contain
clean rooms, laboratories for nanofabrication, one-of-a-kind
signature instruments, and other instruments (such as
nanopatterning tools and research-grade probe microscopes)
not generally available except at major scientific user
facilities.
As with existing Office of Science user
facilities, access will be through submission of proposals
that will be reviewed by independent proposal evaluation
boards.
Planning for the Centers, including the
selection of research thrusts and instrument suites,
drew on substantial participation by the research community,
largely though a series of widely advertised open workshops.
Nearly 2,000 researchers attended these workshops, about
half of them from the academic community.
In response to the requests of prospective
users who attended the initial workshops, each Center
began a limited-scope user research program in fiscal
year 2003.
Each Center is being housed in a new laboratory
building near one or more existing Office of Science
facilities for X-ray, neutron or electron scattering.
The five Centers are being located to take advantage
of the complementary capabilities of other large scientific
facilities, such as:
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