Carnegie Mellon Nanofab

A premier research laboratory in the College of Engineering, the Carnegie Mellon Nanofabrication Facility is one of the most well equipped university based facilities for thin film and nano/micro device development in the United States. The Nanofab includes a cleanroom with 2,600 square feet of class 100 space and 1,200 square feet of class 10 space, as well as three thin film labs. The Nanofab is a self supporting facility managed by the Electrical & Computer Engineering Department and occupies space on the F level of Hamerschlag Hall and on the second floor of Roberts Engineering Hall.

The facility was originally constructed by the university to support the 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 Electrical & Computer Engineering, Materials Science and Engineering, Physics, Robotics, Chemical Engineering, Mechanical Engineering, Biology, Biomedical Engineering, Chemistry, DSSC, MEMS Lab, ICES, CNXT, and industry.

Areas of research include process development of data storage materials and devices, MEMS, semiconductor materials and quantum structures, and integrated electro-optics.

Highlights from the extensive tool list include an electron beam lithography system, atomic layer deposition, fourteen sputtering systems, ion beam etching and deposition systems, a wafer stepper, two direct write laser lithography systems, three contact aligners, a FIB, a CMP and five RIEs. 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.