When requesting Foundry resources on your user proposal, it is important to correctly identify which Foundry facilities you will need to access in order to accomplish your proposed project. We encourage proposals that use more than one facility, if needed, but you should only request the resources you are likely to use in the course of a given proposal and must provide a clear scope of work for each facility requested.
Lead Facility
The most important step is to identify the appropriate Lead Facility, which is the Foundry facility in which the majority of your work will take place during your project’s specified timeframe (12 months for a Standard Proposal). Your proposal will be peer-reviewed by a group of external subject-matter experts for the Lead Facility, and resources will be allocated based on the Lead Facility’s current capacity to accommodate and support users.
Multiple Lead Facilities
Some projects require significant resources from more than one facility, beyond what would be appropriate for a Support Facility request (see below). These projects can be accommodated by submitting a separate Lead Facility proposal to each of the heavily used Facilities. Each scientifically related but independent proposal will undergo peer review by the Proposal Review Board of the specified Lead Facility and may be accepted or rejected independent of any associated proposals. These related proposals can have identical scientific narratives or may be customized to the different Lead Facilities.
Support Facilities
About half of all Foundry proposals also request access to one or more Support Facilities. These requests must be more modest in scope than Lead Facility requests as they are not taken into account during resource allocation. As described in the Facility-specific examples below, Support Facility requests can include access to routine tools on which users are already trained or on which minimal training is required, or other activities that pose a similarly low burden on staff time and limited resources. If additional Support Facilities are deemed necessary after a project is accepted, it is possible to add them later.
Determining Lead versus Support Requests: Examples
Below you can find Facility-specific examples of the type of work that is typically considered appropriate for Lead versus Support requests. Users are also encouraged to consult with Foundry staff before submitting proposals in order to determine appropriate resource requests. For guidance on which staff member to contact, email the User Office or call 510-486-7423.
Imaging Facility
Examples of activities suitable for Lead Facility requests to the Imaging Facility:
- Training new users in microscopy and spectroscopy techniques that require multiple training sessions
- Creating new characterization techniques, software or analysis routines
- Building or modifying microscopes or spectrometers or their accesories for a specific experimental procedure
- Characterizing a new material that may influence the instrument performance for subsequent users
- Work flows that require many days of collection and analysis, e.g. Cryo electron tomography, Kelvin Probe Microscopy
Examples of activities suitable for Support Facility requests to the Imaging Facility:
- Routine use of instruments like XPS, SEM, and AFM by previously trained users (specific qualified users, not research groups)
- Training for morphological characterization on the SEM or AFM of a single new user per support proposal
Nanofabrication Facility
Nanofabrication Capabilities & Tools
Examples of activities suitable for Lead Facility requests to the Nanofabrication Facility:
- Development of new complex fabrication processes
- Modification of existing setups to suit user processes
- Extensive use of complex tools, such as atomic layer deposition, focused ion beam, and electron-beam lithography
Examples of activities suitable for Support Facility requests to the Nanofabrication Facility:
- Routine use of routine tools, such as deposition of standard materials, reactive ion etcher, and ellipsometry
- Staff support in figuring out approaches to experimental problems
- Standard processing that will not require heavy development
- Single or few samples grown by ALD or other methods
Theory Facility
Examples of activities suitable for Lead Facility requests to the Theory Facility:
- Training a user (experienced or novice) to use or modify an existing piece of code
- Training a user to build a theory or piece of simulation code in order to tackle a problem outside of the scope of existing theories or codes
Examples of activities suitable for Support Facility requests to the Theory Facility:
- Discussion and consultation to help guide a users’ work
- Helping an experienced simulator run an existing piece of code
Inorganic Nanostructures Facility
Inorganic Nanostructures Capabilities & Tools
Examples of activities suitable for Lead Facility requests to the Inorganic Facility:
- Performing a high-throughput synthesis screen on WANDA or HERMAN
- Requests for staff to program new robotic or data analysis routines
- Developing or synthesizing a new material on a Schlenk lineUse of metal-organic chemical vapor deposition for materials development
- Frequent use of any chemical hood, glovebox or instrument
- Glovebox use for anything other than sample preparation and/or temporary storage
- Transport measurements involving thermal, gas, electrical, or optical measurements
Examples of activities suitable for Support Facility requests to the Inorganic Facility:
- Routine use of instruments like XRD, confocal Raman microscopy, TGA, DSC, DLS, FTIR, table-top SEM, and fluorescence spectroscopy
- Glovebox use for sample preparation and temporary storage
- Infrequent use of a fume hood to run standard reactions or prepare samples.
- Infrequent use of tube furnaces for annealing samples
- Staff support in figuring out approaches to experimental problems
- Routine liquid handling on the Nimbus robot
- Where appropriate, access to an instrument session to determine the feasibility of future Lead Facility projects in the Inorganic Facility
Biological Nanostructures Facility
Biological Nanostructures Capabilities & Tools
Examples of activities suitable for Lead Facility requests to the Biological Nanostructures Facility:
- Design, synthesis, purification and characterization of peptides, proteins, and peptoid polymers
- Access to expertise in genome engineering, sequencing, and corresponding analyses
- Synthesis and functionalization of nanoparticle probes for bioimaging applications
- Expression, purification, modification and characterization of self-assembling proteins into higher order structures
- Fluorescence imaging of materials and their interactions
- Bioelectrochemical characterization of bacteria
Examples of activities suitable for Support Facility requests to the Biological Nanostructures Facility:
- Preparation of samples for analysis
- Routine/infrequent use of bioanalytical instrumentation
Organic Facility
Examples of activities suitable for Lead Facility requests to the Organic Facility:
- Porosity measurement training
- Access to the single crystal X-ray diffractometer
- Routine use of fume hood or glove box, beyond sample preparation or storage
- Synthesis of new materials
- Comprehensive OPV or OFET device fabrication and characterization
Examples of activities suitable for Support Facility requests to the Organic Facility:
- Staff consultation in figuring out approaches to new experimental problems.
- Temporary access to fume hoods or glove boxes for sample handling
- Routine use of instruments listed in the previous section by trained users (specific qualified users, not research groups)
- Routine use of instruments like NMR, MALDI, chromatographic systems, DSC, FTIR, and fluorescence spectroscopy
- Where appropriate, access to an instrument session to determine the feasibility of future Organic Facility projects
NCEM Facility
Examples of activities suitable for Lead Facility requests to the NCEM Facility:
- Training new users (experienced or novice) to become independent microscope operators
- Access to the Helios G4, TitanX, ThemIS, TEAM 0.5 or TEAM I microscopes
- 4D-STEM (scanning nanobeam diffraction), exit wave reconstruction, or other processing-intensive analysis
- Developing new measurement techniques, software, and analysis routines
Examples of activities suitable for Support Facility requests to the NCEM Facility:
- Limited use of routine instruments such as CM200, JEOL 3010, Libra 200, and Tecnai by previously trained, independent users (specific qualified users, not research groups)
- Routine sample preparation such as mechanical polishing, microtomy, and argon ion beam milling
- Staff consultation in figuring out approaches to new experimental problems
- Where appropriate, limited access to an instrument session with staff support to determine the feasibility of future Lead Facility projects in NCEM
