The Material Characterization Facility – operated within Colorado Shared Instrumentation in Nanofabrication and Characterization (COSINC) service center, College and Engineering and Applied Science, University of Colorado, Boulder – recently relocated to its permanent home in the Sustainability, Energy and Environment Laboratory (SEEL) building on east campus. The characterization facility houses a range of instrumentation for a wide variety of materials characterization techniques, including field-emission scanning electron microscopy (SEM), conventional SEMs, atomic force microscopy and scanning tunneling microscopy. It also has capabilities such as energy dispersive x-ray spectroscopy and electron backscatter diffraction. The facility is now located in several suites within SEEL on the first floor, specifically designed for very low mechanical vibrations and serves over 150 users and 70 Principal investigators across campus. The facility also houses a Focus Ion Beam (FIB)-SEM instrument, which in addition to in-situ imaging, can use heavy ions to perform “nano-machining”. The facility enables a wide variety of research projects in electronics, photonics, quantum science, energy and environment to bio-medical, pharmaceutical and nanomedicine, while fostering interdisciplinary research in the college and across campus.
COSINC is a multidisciplinary core research facility that offers a common platform for the convergence of multiple scientific and engineering disciplines and facilitates collaborative research with strategic partners and information exchange. The Material Characterization Facility is already creating synergies with other user facilities on east campus, including a planned ISO 5 cleanroom, which will better serve our CU Boulder research community and local companies. COSINC is also contributing to the training of the next generation of scientists and engineers by offering hands-on training opportunities for our students and researchers in material fabrication and characterization. In addition, COSINC is part of the NSF supported RAIN (Remote Access to Instrumentation in Nanotechnology) network where the FIB instrument is used for remote hands-on demonstration to students and researchers across the nation. https://www.colorado.edu/facility/cosinc/
