The Maryland NanoCenter (www.nanocenter.umd.edu) was established in fall 2004 to enhance the coherence and effectiveness of the university’s nano community. A campus partnership between colleges, the NanoCenter brings together a strong nano community at UMD under a single umbrella to support and promote research activities on the campus and in the region. NanoCenter supports two major shared user facilities, the FabLab and the NispLab, which are located in the NanoCenter headquarters in the new Jeong H. Kim Engineering Building. These labs are operated as user facilities open to external users from industry, government, and other universities, as well as UMD research groups. The NanoCenter also maintains a substantial IT as well as technical infrastructure, which provides database-driven web access, full qualification, web-based scheduling and chargeback for equipment use, and flexible environments to support long-distance collaboration. The NanoCenter provides administrative as well as technical support to nano-related research centers, the NEES EFRC bring a prime example.

The NanoCenter’s FabLab (www.fablab.umd.edu) is a 10,000sf class 1000 cleanroom facility supported by 5 technical staff, providing deposition, etch, lithography, SEM, metrology, and other microfabrication capability along with key nanosynthesis and patterning capabilities (e-beam lithography, ALD, nanowire growth). The NanoCenter’s NispLab (www.aimlab.umd.edu) has 3-4 technical staff to support two JEOL 200keV TEM’s, a Hitachi SU-70 SEM, an electron microprobe, and two dual-beam FIB’s.

In addition, the NanoCenter offers access to selected instruments in its set of Partner Labs.