Open AccessSo, You Want to Have a Nanofab? Shared-Use Nanofabrication and Characterization Facilities: Cost-of-Ownership, Toolset, Utilization, and Lessons Learned
Author(s) -
J. Alexander Liddle,
Jerry Bowser,
B. Ilić,
Vincent Luciani
Publication year - 2020
Publication title -
journal of research of the national institute of standards and technology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.202
H-Index - 59
eISSN - 2165-7254
pISSN - 1044-677X
DOI - 10.6028/jres.125.009
Subject(s) - computer science , nist , key (lock) , engineering management , process management , task (project management) , systems engineering , total cost of ownership , host (biology) , construct (python library) , risk analysis (engineering) , data science , computer security , business , ecology , natural language processing , engineering , biology , programming language , operating system
Nanofabrication/characterization facilities enable research and developmentactivities across a host of science and engineering disciplines. The collection of toolsand supporting infrastructure necessary to construct, image, and measure micro- andnanoscale materials, devices, and systems is complex and expensive to establish, and itis costly to maintain and optimize. As a result, these facilities are typically operatedin a shared-use mode. We discuss the key factors that must be considered to successfullycreate and sustain such facilities. These include the need for long-term vision andinstitutional commitment, and the hands-on involvement of managers in facilityoperations. We consider startup, operating, and recapitalization costs, together withalgorithms for cost recovery and tool-time allocation. The acquisition of detailed andcomprehensive project and tool-utilization data is essential for understanding andoptimizing facility operations. Only such a data-driven decision-making approach canmaximize facility impact on institutional goals. We illustrate these concepts using theNational Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) NanoFab as our test case, but themethodologies and resources presented here should be useful to all those faced with thischallenging task.