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SCIENCE AT THE CNMS
The
Center for Nanophase Materials Sciences (CNMS) at Oak Ridge National
Laboratory (ORNL) is a Department of Energy / Office of Science
Nanoscale Science Research Center (NSRC) operating as a highly
collaborative and multidisciplinary user research facility. The
CNMS is one of five DOE
NSRCs that form an integrated national user network. Each NSRC
is associated with other major national research facilities at
one
of DOE’s National Laboratories, enabling their application to nanoscale
science and technology. The central organizing concept of CNMS
is to provide unique opportunities to understand nanoscale materials,
assemblies, and phenomena, by creating a set of scientific synergies
that will accelerate the process of discovery.
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AFM
images of Fe nanodots and nanowires on flat and stepped
NaCl surfaces (edge length 750nm)
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To accomplish
this, the CNMS integrates nanoscale science with three highly synergistic
national needs:
• Neutron Science, using the Spallation Neutron Source,
SNS, and the recently upgraded High Flux Isotope Reactor, HFIR.
• Synthesis
Science, or what we call “science-driven synthesis,” facilitated
by extensive and novel synthesis capabilities in the first three
CNMS Research Capabilities areas listed at the bottom of this page
and by a new Nanofabrication
Research Laboratory.
• Theory,
Modeling and Simulation, through establishing a new Nanomaterials
Theory Institute, with close connections to the staff expertise
and computational capabilities of ORNL's Center for Computational Sciences
and the new national Leadership Scientific Computing Facility.
The CNMS's
research capabilities provide a broad community of scientists, engineers,
and students from throughout the nation, but
particularly the southeastern United States, with ready access to
the full range of tools and collaborative capabilities needed for
nanoscale research, in a single location.
Scientific
Themes
CNMS research focuses on understanding, designing, and controlling the dynamics, spatial chemistry, and energetics underlying functionality and properties of nanoscale materials, systems, and architectures.
Multiscale Functionality of Nanostructures
- Developing
instrumentation and techniques to image and understand
the functionality of nanoscale materials and interacting assemblies
- Research
on new emerging physics and chemistry at the nanoscale
- Forefront
capabilities in scanning probes and spectroscopy, neutron and x-ray scattering,
optical spectroscopy, and electron microscopy
Functional
Polymer Architectures
- Advancing
our fundamental understanding of the links between polymer structure,
property
and function that are controlled by weak intermolecular
interactions and interfacial phenomena
- Understanding
the role of macromolecular topology on self-assembly
- Rooted
in controlled synthesis of well-defined polymers and bio-inspired
polymers, and
in rigorous
nanoscale characterization
Collective Phenomena in Nanophases
- Builds
on strong theoretical effort, focusing on understanding
the emergence of collective
behavior
- Developing
multiscale theory and modeling from electronic structure to the
mesoscale
- Functionality
in complex systems and assemblies of nanoscale
materials such as oxides and bio-inspired nanomaterials
CNMS Research Capabilities
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