Shared experimental facilities include Central Facilities operated by the Nebraska Center for Materials and Nanoscience (NCMN) and Shared Laboratory Facilities specific to this MRSEC. The Central Facilities are recharge centers with faculty supervisors and materials specialists who maintain equipment and train users.
The MRSEC-related Shared Laboratory Facilities are described briefly below.
A. Magnetic Characterization Facilities (David Sellmyer, Sy-Hwang Liou, Roger Kirby): (1) Two Quantum Design SQUID magnetometers (7 T and 5.5 T); (2) Alternating Force Gradient Magnetometer; (3) Lakeshore 9 T extraction magnetometer and ac susceptometer; (4) Lakeshore vibrating sample magnetometer (300 K to 1000 K); (5) Two magneto-optic Kerr spectrometers; (6) Zeiss Axiotron Kerr-effect microscope.
B. Nanofabrication Facilities (Sy-Hwang Liou, David Sellmyer, Diandra Leslie-Pelecky, Jody Redepenning): (1) Focused Ion Beam system; (2) Cluster-deposition system; (3) Electrodeposition systems for nanodot and nanowire preparation; (4) Nanocluster and compaction system; (5) Ball milling systems. MRSEC faculty have access to a clean room and plasma etching facility housed in Walter Scott Engineering Center. The clean room includes patterning equipment, capability to make metal contacts on patterned structures, and a fume hood.
C. Electron Spectroscopy Facilities (Peter Dowben): (1) Spin-polarized inverse photoemission and angle-resolved inverse photoemission facilities at Nebraska; (2) Spin-polarized photoemission and angle-resolved photoemission facilities at Louisiana Center for Advanced Microstructures and Devices Synchrotron; (3) UV and Soft X-ray CVD facilities; (4) ESCA and angle-resolved XPS facilities at Nebraska.
D. Optical Microscopy Facility (Steve Ducharme, Sy-Hwang Liou): This facility is equipped with state-of-the-art optical microscopes and micromanipulation capabilities. One instrument is an upright microscope, with fixed sample stage and piezo-driven micromanipulators (Zeiss Physiostation with Burleigh micromanipulators). A second instrument is an inverted microscope with manual micromanipulators (Zeiss Axiovert 200M with Leica manipulators). Both systems are equipped with differential interference contrast and low-light CCD systems. A third microscope is dedicated to optical microscopy projection for small-area lithography and near-UV inspection (Zeiss Axiotron). Microscopes are equipped with a variety of optics and microscopy techniques (phase contrast, DIC), as well as image acquisition.
E. Computational Facilities (Kirill Belashchenko, Xiao Cheng Zeng): Beowulf-type clusters including a 64-dual-core AMD Opteron machine and a 32-core AMD Athlon MP machine are maintained for electronic-structure, Monte-Carlo and spin-transport calculations. These are used by several research groups in the MRSEC.
