Central Facilities

X-RAY STRUCTURAL CHARACTERIZATION

The NCMN X-Ray Characterization 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).

Powder X-ray Diffraction  
High Resolution X-ray Diffraction    
Crystallography

MATERIALS PREPARATION

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.

NANOFABRICATION

The NCMN facility contains a large variety of equipment to prepare, fabricate, analysis, and characterize a wide range of nanostructure materials.

SCANNING PROBE MICROSCOPY (SPM)

The NCMN Scanning Probe Microscopy 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.

ELECTRON MICROSCOPY

The scope of the facility is "materials characterization" of the topography, morphology, elemental composition, crystalline microstructure, crystal defects, atomic arrangements of materials, largely on a scale from 10 micrometers down to the near- atomic

MECHANICAL & MATERIALS CHARACTERIZATION

This facility contains a large variety of equipment to characterize the mech-anical and physical properties of a wide range of materials. The facility focuses on using the many materials characterization aspects to perform failure analyses on components.

CRYOGENICS

Cryogenics provides the means for obtaining Liquid Nitrogen and Liquid Helium for low temperature research, cold traps, etc.