About CNM

The Center for Nanoscale Materials (CNM) at Argonne National Laboratory is a premier user facility, providing expertise, instruments, and infrastructure for interdisciplinary nanoscience and nanotechnology research. Academic, industrial, and international researchers can access the center through its user program for both nonproprietary and proprietary research.

The center's goal is to support basic research and the development of advanced instrumentation that will help generate new scientific insights, create innovative materials with unique functionality, and contribute significantly to energy-related research and development programs. High-impact staff and user science is accommodated within the primary cross-cutting theme of “Energy and Information Transduction at the Nanoscale.” Three critical pillars underpin this theme in the areas of:

• Materials discovery
• Manipulation
• Visualization

The CNM is one of five U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) Office of Science Nanoscale Science Research Centers (NSRCs) dedicated to nanoscience and nanotechnology. It was constructed under a joint partnership between the DOE and the State of Illinois, as part of DOE's Nanoscale Science Research Center program. Together the NSRCs comprise a suite of complementary facilities that provide researchers with state-of-the-art capabilities to fabricate, process, characterize, and model nanoscale materials, and they constitute the largest infrastructure investment of the National Nanotechnology Initiative.

The CNM's main research portfolio is organized around six key areas:

• Electronic & Magnetic Materials & Devices
• Nanobio Interfaces
• Nanofabrication & Devices
• Nanophotonics
• Theory & Modeling
• X-Ray Microscopy

Five cross-cutting facilities are featured at the center:

• Computational Nanoscience
• Dedicated Hard X-Ray Beamline at the Advanced Photon Source (APS)
• Materials Synthesis
• Nanofabrication Research
• Proximal Probes

Users

The CNM welcomes outside users, both as independent investigators and as collaborators, from a wide range of scientific fields, on the basis of peer-reviewed proposals. Three calls for proposals are issued each year.

The accessibility of the CNM ensures a cross-disciplinary approach to nano-related research that enables ideas and activities to cross-pollinate, mature, and evolve over time into the pathways of scientific investigation and discovery that will help shape the future of our society.

Location

Center for Nanoscale Materials
Argonne National Laboratory
9700 South Cass Avenue, Building 440
Argonne, IL 60439
Contact Us

Map of Argonne Site Showing CNM Location