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About the Center for Nanotechnology
The CNT, directed by Professor Francois Baneyx, was funded in 1997 by Viola Vogel and Charlie Campbell through a University of Washington’s Initiatives Fund (UIF) award, and operates under the Molecular Engineering and Science Institute since 2011. Our community is highly interdisciplinary and regroups over 80 faculty members from the Departments of Chemistry, Physics, Bioengineering, Chemical Engineering, Electrical Engineering, Materials Science and Engineering, Mechanical Engineering, Biochemistry, Genome Sciences, Physiology and Biophysics, Microbiology, Radiology, Pharmaceutics and Medicine. The CNT’s Optional Ph.D. Program in Nanotechnology, originally funded by two Integrative Graduate Education and Research Traineeship (IGERT) awards from the National Science Foundation, was the first of its kind in the nation and provides graduate students with excellent interdisciplinary education and experience in nanoscale science and nanotechnology.The NanoTech User Facility (NTUF) was established in 1998 to provide the Pacific Northwest nanotechnology community with access to advanced characterization and nanofabrication equipment. In 2004, NTUF expanded its role to the national level by becoming one of the nodes of the National Nanotechnology Infrastructure Network (NNIN), an NSF sponsored consortium of 14 universities, whose mission is to provide academic and industrial users with the facilities, infrastructure, and expertise to enable rapid advances in nanoscience and nanotechnology. Since 2008, NTUF operates jointly with the Microfabrication Facility (MFF) which provides advanced micro and nanofabrication tools. NTUF houses leading-edge instrumentation for characterization at the micro- and nanoscales. These include a Zeiss laser scanning confocal microscope, a Renishaw confocal Raman microscope, an FEI field emission SEM, a Veeco Dimension 3100 SPM, a DI Multimode SPM with scanning tunneling microscopy capability, an FEI Tecnai F20 TEM/STEM, a Biacore T100 Surface Plasmon Resonance system, a Woollam M-2000 ellipsometer, and a Bruker D8 Discover XRD system. A Nabity electron-beam Lithography system on the SEM allows for fabrication at the nanoscale. NTUF provides a superior learning, working and problem-solving environment that draws upon its extensive staff expertise and fosters interactions and synergies between disciplines. Well-developed programs allow users from different disciplines to master tools operation after a few hour-long training sessions and qualified users have 24/7 access to the facility. NTUF also performs in-house nanotechnology tool development by drawing on faculty research and expertise. The CNT plays a crucial role in several other interdisciplinary centers and programs on campus including:
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