The facility includes a 4,000 square foot cleanroom, three thin film labs, and a photo reduction darkroom. The facility was constructed by the university to support the wide variety of thin film and solid state electronics research conducted primarily by the DSSC and the ECE department.
Research requiring the use of the facility is inherently multidisciplinary.
Faculty, staff, and students access the labs and collaborate on projects originating from the DSSC , ECE , Materials Science and Engineering , Physics , Robotics , Chemical Engineering , Mechanical Engineering , and industry. Areas of research include process development of magnetic recording and magneto optic recording thin films and device structures, microelectromechanical systems, semiconductor materials and quantum structures, and integrated electro-optics. Highlights from the extensive tool list include fourteen sputtering systems, a UHV CVD system, an ICP RIE system, ion beam etching and deposition systems, a wafer stepper, and a five nanometer focused ion beam etching and deposition system. The processing techniques utilized in the Nanofab have predominately been developed in-house for novel device fabrication. Much of the equipment has either been modified, updated, or wholly constructed by the staff to suit the needs of the research community.