What is the Materials Characterization Facility?
Material and device structural characterization on the micro- and nano-scale as well as their properties has become the backbone of cutting-edge research focused on solid-state experimental science. Topics including but not limited to advanced manufacturing, IC circuits, energy-efficient devices, energy storage and conversion, novel, environmentally friendly structural materials, improved resilience of the constructed environment, and advances in understanding and treating degenerative skeletal diseases, are examples of areas benefiting from state-of-the-art materials characterization. The UCB CoE faculty has been at the forefront of research initiatives in these areas across the disciplines, with groups of faculty spread across multiple departments. One of the main challenges today is the fact that these research thrusts are typically hardware intensive, and the rapidly increasing sophistication and cost of the hardware has made acquisition and maintenance of the hardware cost prohibitive for individual researchers. Engagement with industry and success in competing for federal equipment grants is critical.
Accordingly, the College of Engineering (CoE) has created a Shared Facility for Materials Characterization for researchers to have access to high-quality equipment and support in a collaborative space: Facilities in Hearst 260, SDH 148, and Hearst Room 188. This facility enables the CoE to improve space utilization, allow access to high-quality equipment, reduce costs across the college and to extensively engage with industry. Accordingly, the inaugural Director of COE-SFMC is expected to lead this new shared experimental facility that will serve the broader CoE and UCB research and teaching enterprise to create a sustainable recharge and revenue-supported core facility. Such shared research facilities are, increasingly, the reality for cutting-edge, hardware-intensive research in the 21st century and have become indispensable at major research universities.