Research Facilities

UC Berkeley has world-class facilities for micro- and nanoscale characterization, imaging, synthesis, processing, and fabrication.

Berkeley faculty and students also benefit from our proximity to the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, which has important national user facilities to support research at the frontiers of nanoscience.

Berkeley Microfabrication Laboratory

The U.C. Berkeley Microfabrication Laboratory provides research space and knowledge in state-of-the-art semiconductor and microfabrication technology to UC Berkeley researchers. Microfabrication has wide ranging applications in various fields of engineering and sciences. About half of the Microlab's membership originates in departments other than EECS, such as Bioengineering, Chemistry, Chemical Engineering, Materials Science and Engineering, Mechanical Engineering and Physics.

College of Chemistry Research Facilities

The College of Chemistry supports research facilities for X-ray crystallography, mass spectrometry, graphics, microanalytic facilities, NMR, and mechanical shops. To learn more about chemistry facilities, visit the department website.

Electron Microscope Lab

The EML is an instruction and research unit of the College of Letters and Sciences, providing EM services to the Berkeley campus and the academic community at large. The EML provides education and training, equipment for trained users, and full service microscopy for trained users. EML equipment includes a Scanning Electron Microscope, an Environmental Scanning Electron Microscope, and a Transmission Electron Microscope.

Laser Thermal Laboratory

The Laser Thermal Laboratory is located in Room 6162, 5115 Etcheverry Hall, in the main campus of the University of California at Berkeley. The focus of the laboratory is on micro/nano engineering, laser materials processing and micro/nano-machining, non-contact diagnostics in fast processes, change of phase transformations in semiconductors and electronic materials, laser-driven thin film crystal growth for applications in microelectronic devices, laser-induced nanodeposition, microscale fuel cells, thermal management in micro-devices and transport diagnostics in MEMS devices.

Physics Department Electronics Shop

The capabilities of the Physics Electronics Support Group include circuit development, computer aided design tools, drafting and documentation, circuit construction, debugging and modification, printed circuit board layout and fabrication, custom front panel layout, custom sheet metal fabrication, wire wrap assemblies, repair and calibration of electronic and electromechanical equipment including leak detectors. In addition, the group maintains a storeroom of electronic parts.

Facilities at Lawrence Berkeley National Lab

Molecular Foundry

The Molecular Foundry at LBL is a user facility for the design, synthesis and characterization of nanoscale materials. The focus of the Foundry will be on the development and understanding of both "soft" (biological and polymer) and "hard" (inorganic and microfabricated) nanostructured building blocks and their integration into complex functional assemblies. The Foundry was dedicated on March 24, 2006. Already, more than 50 Molecular Foundry scientific projects have been approved.

The Foundry will support six closely coupled facilities:

National Center for Electron Microscopy

NCEM provides scientific researchers with essential resources for electron beam microcharacterization of materials. Established in 1983, NCEM houses several of the world's most advanced microscopes and tools for microcharacterization.

Advanced Light Source

The ALS is a national user facility that generates intense light for scientific and technological research. As one of the world's brightest sources of ultraviolet and soft x-ray beams--and the world's first third-generation synchrotron light source in its energy range--the ALS makes previously impossible studies possible.

National Energy Research Scientific Computing Center (NERSC)

NERSC is a world leader in accelerating scientific discovery through computation. NERSC provides high-performance computing tools and expertise that enable computational science of scale, in which large, interdisciplinary teams of scientists attack fundamental problems in science and engineering that require massive calculations and have broad scientific and economic impacts. NERSC has a 10 teraflop/second supercomputer with 6,656 processors, providing researchers across the country with the most powerful computer for unclassified research in the United States. NERSC supports important research in computational nanoscience.