About the Nebraska Nanoscale Facility
The Nebraska Nanoscale Facility (NNF) is the result of a nearly
$3.5-million NSF grant to establish a regional center of excellence in
nanoscience and nanotechnology. First awarded in 2015, the grant was renewed for another five years in 2020, ensuring its
continuation through at least 2025.
NNF is one of 16 centers created under the NSF’s National Nanotechnology Coordinated Infrastructure
(NNCI), which is a nationwide network of sites whose goal is to provide the
US with the research and educational infrastructure for transformative
advances in fabrication, understanding and utilization of novel
nanostructures, materials and devices.
The vision of NNF is to be an internationally recognized center of
excellence for nanoscience and an NNCI research hub for integrated
fabrication, characterization and education in nanotechnology for the western
region of the United States’ Midwest area. NNF includes eight central and
shared facilities that are available to academic, industrial, and governmental
users with expert staff available for training, process consultation, and
collaboration. Most NNF laboratories are located in the 32,000 sq. ft.
Voelte-Keegan Nanoscience Research Center that was completed in 2012 and
others in the attached Jorgensen Hall constructed in 2010.
Facilities include state-of-the art equipment for nanometer-scale
characterization of materials surface and physical properties; hands-on access
to electron microscopes, sample preparation equipment plus data collection and
data reduction instrumentation; materials identification and characterization
through x-ray diffraction techniques; three-dimensional characterization of
nanostructures using electron beam imaging, chemical analysis, and
diffraction; and a 4,000 square foot cleanroom for designing, fabricating,
characterizing and testing of complex nano/micro-scale structures and
devices.
The present largest and strongest research areas of NNF users are
nanomagnetics, nanoelectronics and sensors, and nanomaterials for energy.
Basic research areas include synthesis, characterization & modeling of
nanoscale materials/ structures, fundamental properties of electronic,
magnetic, structural materials at the nanoscale, emerging interface phenomena,
and new functionalities not present in bulk materials. Research areas relevant
to applications include nanomaterials for energy technologies, ultra
high-density data-storage media, nonvolatile memories and logic,
nanoelectronics and spintronics, field and chemical sensors, and nano
manufacturing.