Midsize Facilities The Infrastructure for Materials Research (2006) / Chapter Skim
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Pages 61-88
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From page 61... ...
But two competing trends are apparent when considering facilities that support the materials research enterprise: (1) Capital costs as well as the costs of maintenance and support are escalating to such an extent that individual institutions are experiencing serious difficulty in providing equipment to their user base and also maintaining it at a state-of-the-art level.
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From page 62... ...
Funding is one of the most significant challenges facing midsize facilities for the following reasons: · The escalating costs of instrumentation make it more and more difficult to identify sources of funding for the initial capital investment. · The changing landscape of cost-sharing requirements for federal grants has placed many institutions at a disadvantage for securing the initial capital funds.
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From page 63... ...
Additionally, suitable incentives to encourage institutions to team up as partners may go a long way in overcoming limited funds and the consequent loss or denial of opportunities to participate in groundbreaking materials research. A conservative estimate of (recurring)
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From page 64... ...
Secondary Ion Mass Spectrometers Secondary ion mass spectrometry (SIMS) is a standard tool in the characterization suite of a materials research laboratory.
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From page 65... ...
CH A L L E N G E S F O R M I D S I Z EF A C I L I T I E S 65 FIGURE 3.1.1 (Top) Cryogenic probes with ultrahigh-field NMR magnets enable efficient struc tural characterization of biomaterials (biological polymers or biological macromolecules)
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From page 66... ...
Over the ensuing years, key advances were made to the system, including the following: · Primary beam mass filter, which improved the primary ion beam purity and allowed the simultaneous mounting of two ion sources; · Ion sources and ion optics that allowed microfocusing of the primary beam; · An improved charge neutralization system for bulk insulators; · Dramatic improvement in the quality of the vacuum, permitting better detection limits for the atmospherics; and · Sample rotation for improved depth resolution. The foregoing discussion concerns the evolution of what might be considered the main
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From page 67... ...
stream SIMS depth profiling instrumentation. Over the past 10 to 15 years, other configurations of SIMS instruments have become available to the materials research community.
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From page 68... ...
1,200 1,000 ($K) Cost 800 Captial 600 400 200 0 1980 1985 1989 1993 1997 2001 Year FIGURE 3.1.4 History of the average purchase price of top-selling secondary ion mass spectrometry (SIMS)
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From page 69... ...
CH A L L E N G E S F O R M I D S I Z E F A C I L I T I E S 69 8,000 7,000 6,000 $M) 5,000 (FY03 4,000 Price 3,000 Purchase 2,000 1,000 0 1980 1985 1990 1995 2000 2005 Year FIGURE 3.1.5 History of typical costs of electron-beam lithography machines over the past 20 years.
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From page 70... ...
Also responsible for the trend, however, is the varied nature of the user community. Systems placed in shared user facilities need to have the near-Angstrom-scale spatial coherence to produce gratings for optoelectronics one day and the ultrahigh resolution to attach contact electrodes to nanotubes or molecular electronics the next day.
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From page 71... ...
Because the annual maintenance costs are typically covered under a service contract, the price is the same in the first year as it is in the tenth. To bridge the gap between cost recovery through user fees and the recurring expenses of maintaining and operating the facility, midsize facilities must identify alternative sources of ongoing support.
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From page 72... ...
Stable and Secure Staffing Staffing at both technical and scientific levels is an essential ingredient for successful midsize facility operation. A dramatic example is provided by the Analytical Electron Microscope at the National Center for Electron Microscopy (NCEM)
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From page 73... ...
Student or other temporary workforce solutions are best used to supplement rather than to replace permanent staff. The issue of providing midsize facilities' support staff with an interesting and rewarding career path must be considered carefully, as there is little point in training and hiring technical staff if retention of staff is poor.
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From page 74... ...
initiative in 1997, to build core capabilities at the state's universities and to foster commercialization of university-developed MEMS technologies. Key to the success of the Washington Technology Center was the establishment of a 15,000 ft2 Microfabrication Laboratory.
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From page 75... ...
With their scientific exploration and inquiry invested in the facility, the staff members are motivated to maintain and improve the equipment and are also interested in collaborative research projects with outside users. Visibility to the User Community Feedback received from facility users at the committee's town hall meetings and during its site visits clearly indicates that "there are more users out there" -- in other words, some midsize facilities suffer from a lack of visibility and publicity.
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From page 76... ...
User feedback and facility assessment can contribute to optimizing a facility's usefulness. The Microfabrication Laboratory at the Washington Technology Center (see Box 3.2)
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From page 77... ...
A start has been made in the very recent campuswide and regional infrastructure surveys being conducted by various universities, a development that seems to reflect a sensible approach toward avoiding costly duplication of facilities 9Basic Energy Sciences Advisory Committee, Report of the Basic Energy Sciences Advisory Committee Panel on Department of Energy Synchrotron Radiation Sources and Science, Washington, D.C.: Department of Energy, November 1997. Available online at http://www.sc.doe.gov/bes/BESAC/ syncpanel.pdf; last accessed June 1, 2005.
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From page 78... ...
For instance, accounting schemes are not standardized across facilities, across programs, or across agencies, so even just the denominator is hard to determine. Likewise, not all midsize facilities have the same purpose (some are directed at advancing research, some focus on education, and so on)
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From page 79... ...
, the Advanced Light Source (ALS) , the Space Sciences Laboratory (SSL)
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From page 80... ...
Similarly, the committee found that, in general, facilities that offer equip ment for training, education, and practice alongside topflight cutting-edge tools are regarded more highly and engage a broader group of users. Suites of instruments at successful midsize facilities strongly reflected the usage patterns of the local community.
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From page 81... ...
Recognition of this limitation is becoming increasingly important for projects that are interdisciplinary -- many activities in the materials science area are increasingly so, especially those dealing with biological materials. For example, investigations of macromolecular structures might very well need good access to synchrotron sources for x-ray crystallography, a neutron source such as the Spallation Neutron Source for neutron scattering, ultrahigh-field NMR instrumentation, and cryogenic electron microscopy.
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From page 82... ...
These observations suggest that, at second glance, regional consolida tion of midsize facilities would not be easy. In fact, it might hinder certain phases of the research enterprise, at least until the scientific user community adapted.
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From page 83... ...
Several midsize facilities, such as the Microfabrication Laboratory at the University of California at Berkeley and the NanoScale Science and Technology Facility at Cornell University, achieve this goal with a strictly organized training and sign-up system for each tool: users are simply not permitted to use a tool until they have received training and certification. However, this system appears to work best for larger facilities with multiple tools, where a large pool of technicians or advanced students is available to conduct training.
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From page 84... ...
Facility members given an opportunity to enhance and extend the equipment, even by making small modifications or developing accessories, have a much greater stake in ensuring that their tools operate at as high a level as possible. An ongoing instrument development activity, however small, should be considered in plan ning for a facility to ensure balance in the basic activities of a midsize materials research facility.11 Also important is achieving a balance between outreach and research.
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From page 85... ...
The issue is that government-funded facilities can, in principle and sometimes in fact, perform analytical research at costs substantially below those of commercial analytical service laboratories or nanofabrication laboratories, since the commercial laboratories must recover substantially greater expenses. For instance, because the recovery of the cost of depreciation for government-funded capital investments at universities is not allowed, many overhead costs are not recognized, and no profit is generally sought; such facilities arrive at low figures when they prepare their "cost-recovery" user fees.
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From page 86... ...
Because of the keen sensitivity to the issue of unfair competition between commercial analytical service and fabrication laboratories and federally funded 12 NSF Important Notice 91 was replaced by Important Notice 122, but the earlier notice can still be viewed online at http://prism.mit.edu/nsf.in91/in91txt.htm; last accessed June 1, 2005. 13 NSF Important Notice 122 is available online at http://www.nsf.gov/pubs/1998/iin122/iin122.txt; last accessed June 1, 2005.
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From page 87... ...
15Cornell Center for Materials Research, Policies and Procedures for Shared Experimental Facilities, Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University, November 2000. Available online at http://www.ccmr.cornell.edu/ images/pdf/CCMR_SEF_Policy.pdf; last accessed June 1, 2005.
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From page 88... ...
Finally, the close parallels between midsize facilities and commercial analytical service laboratories in materials research can provide challenges. Compliance with federal guidelines and regulations in these areas is critically important to main taining a healthy symbiosis between midsize facilities and commercial ventures.
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