Facilities
Eight facilities support the NNF mission
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These facilities are available to all University of Nebraska-Lincoln faculty, to companies in Nebraska, and to outside interests. The purpose of these pages are to serve as a guide to the capabilities and equipment available in each facility. Facility specialists and supervisors are available at the contact information on each page to personally answer additional questions.
Location & Contacts
View the location of the NNF facilities and contact information for the specialists.
Acknowledgement Text
Agencies including NSF and the University providing partial support of our Nebraska Nanoscale Facilities and NCMN Facilities require that the following words be included at the end of any Acknowledgement section of a paper in which experimental work was done in NNF-NCMN facilities:
The research was performed in part in the Nebraska Nanoscale Facility: National Nanotechnology Coordinated Infrastructure and the Nebraska Center for Materials and Nanoscience (and/or NERCF), which are supported by the National Science Foundation under Award ECCS: 2025298, and the Nebraska Research Initiative.
Electron Nanoscopy Instrumentation (ENIF)
The scope of this central facility is materials characterization of the topography, morphology, elemental composition, crystalline microstructure, crystal defects, and atomic arrangements of materials, largely on a scale from 10 micrometers down to the near-atomic level. Click here for an overview. Take a video tour.
Nanomaterials & Thin-Films (NTFF)
Two sputtering systems have been established to fabricate a variety of thin films, especially the nano-structured films including overlayers, multilayers, granular solids, clusters, etc. Two tube furnaces are available for sample (target) annealing, doping, and sintering. Click here for an overview. Take a video tour.
Nanofabrication Cleanroom (NCF)
The Nanofabrication Cleanroom central facility contains a large variety of equipment to prepare, fabricate, analyze, and characterize a wide range of nanostructure materials. Click here for an overview. Take a video tour.
Surface & Materials Characterization (SMCF)
The Surface & Materials Characterization central facility employs a variety of very precise, non-destructive probing techniques (AFM, MFM, EFM, LFM, STM, and PFM) for imaging and measuring surface properties of materials from the micron level down to the atomic scale. This facility also contains a large variety of equipment to characterize the mechanical and physical properties of a wide range of materials and focuses on using the many materials characterization aspects to perform failure analyses on components. Click here for an overview. Take a video tour.
X-Ray Structural Characterization (XRSCF)
The X-Ray Characterization central facility is dedicated to materials identification and characterization through nondestructive, X-Ray Diffraction (XRD), high-resolution diffraction for analysis of thin films, complete structure determination of single crystals (crystallography). Click here for an overview. Take a video tour.
Nano-Engineering Research Core Facility (NERCF)
The Nano-Engineering Research Core Facility (NERCF) includes an FEI Helios 660 Dual-Beam Focused Ion-Beam System, a Keyence VK-X200 Laser Scanning Microscope, and an AJA Reactive Sputtering System. Click here for an overview. Take a video tour.
Laser Nanofabrication and Characterization
The Laser Nanofabrication and Characterization shared facility includes the Nanoscribe System, which is a 3D lithography setup enabling the maskless lithography and patterning of polymer materials, and the Zygo Optical Profiler, which is a powerful tool in non-contact analysis at the surface of the samples.
Low-Dimensional Nanostructure Synthesis
The Low-Dimensional Nanostructure Synthesis shared facility includes cluster-deposition systems, atomic layer deposition (ALD), glancing angle deposition (GLAD), and chemical synthesis of nanowires and 2D systems.
