About the Faciliites
The University of Delaware has been a pioneer in materials research and development since the founding of its renowned Center for Composite Materials in 1974. Complementing this legacy, UD has established premier infrastructure and expertise for the innovation of semiconductor materials and devices, including facilities for nanofabrication, epitaxial materials growth, characterization, and electron microscopy.
UDNF: Nanofabrication Facility
UNIVERSITY OF DELAWARE NANOFABRICATION FACILITY (UDNF)
The University of Delaware Nanofabrication Facility enables faculty, academic and corporate partners to create devices smaller than a human hair, supporting scientific advances in fields ranging from medical diagnostics to solar energy harvesting. Located in the 194,000-square-foot Harker Interdisciplinary Science and Engineering (ISE) Laboratory, UDNF has expert staff, state-of-the-art technology and world-class capabilities in lithography, deposition, dry etching, thermal processing, characterization, and device packaging. Areas of excellence include photonic devices and nanostructured solid-state materials with unique optoelectronic and magnetic functionality.
AMCL: Characterization Lab
ADVANCED MATERIALS CHARACTERIZATION LABORATORY (AMCL)
Housed in the research wing of Harker Interdisciplinary Science and Engineering (ISE) Laboratory, UD’s Advanced Materials Characterization Laboratory offers an array of sophisticated instrumentation, including an elite X-ray absorption spectroscopy (XAS) system offering synchrotronlike performance and 3D X-ray imaging microscopes that perform nondestructive, nano-computed tomography, similar to a hospital CT scan, with applications in areas ranging from additive manufacturing to pharmaceutical packaging. The AMCL is operated as a user facility and is staffed by expert personnel who train users through a robust series of short courses.
MGF: Materials Growth
MATERIALS GROWTH FACILITY (MGF)
UD’s Materials Growth Facility unlocks new functionalities in semiconductor materials. The MGF provides the infrastructure and staff support necessary for faculty, academic, and corporate partners to undertake competitive research, offering III-V and topological insulator growth of epitaxial semiconductor films, magnetic and precious metal sputtering, and electron beam evaporation of high temperature metals — all interconnected under ultra-high vacuum. MGF researchers study a diverse range of materials including metal/semiconductor nanocomposites, topological insulators, dilute bismuthides, hyperbolic metamaterials, magnetic tunnel junction heterostructures, heavy metal/ferromagnetic metal ultrafast spintronics, and quantum dot arrays.
UD-CCM: Composite Materials
CENTER FOR COMPOSITE MATERIALS (UD-CCM)
Since its founding in 1974, the University of Delaware’s Center for Composite Materials has been nationally recognized as a center of excellence by the National Science Foundation and the U.S. Department of Defense for interdisciplinary research, education and technology transfer in the areas of materials and synthesis, multifunctional materials, processing science, mechanics and design, sensing and control, and software. Utilizing 52,000 square feet of state-of-the-art facilities, UD-CCM develops models and simulations in a “virtual manufacturing” environment for process optimization and tool design, leading to improved quality, affordability, and innovative new composite manufacturing processes. The center also develops online sensors and devices for monitoring composites manufacturing to end-of-life and validates control schemes using simulations and manufacturing work cells.
KeckCAMM: Microscopy
W. M. KECK CENTER FOR ADVANCED MICROSCOPY ANDMICROANALYSIS CORE (KECKCAMM)
KeckCAMM is a user facility for the structural and chemical characterization of materials at scales ranging from micron to angstrom. Located in the research wing of UD’s Harker Interdisciplinary Science and Engineering (ISE) Laboratory, it provides researchers with access to field emission transmission electron microscopes, scanning electron microscopes, and scanning probe microscopes — some with remote access and control to facilitate research collaborations or classroom teaching. Expert laboratory staff provide extensive training opportunities.
DiCoS: Computation
CENTER FOR DATA INTENSIVE AND COMPUTATIONAL SCIENCE (DICOS)
High performance computing capabilities are available at UD through the Center for Data Intensive and Computational Science, including the Delaware Advanced Research Workforce and Innovation Network (DARWIN), which has 105 compute nodes with a total of 6,672 cores, 22 GPUs, 100 terabytes of memory, and 1.2 petabytes of disk storage. DARWIN is part of the ACCESS advanced computing and data resource supported by the National Science Foundation.
One of the research strengths of the University of Delaware fits in well with the CHIPS and Science Act – photonic integrated circuits.
“We have a history here at Delaware with optoelectronic devices and integrated photonics on silicon and other platforms,” said Jamie Phillips, professor and chair of the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at the University of Delaware. “One of our key faculty members, Dennis Prather, is an expert in thin film lithium niobate. We have one of the only sources of thin film lithium niobate domestically in the US, which is an enabling technology for photonics on a chip. He co-founded a company, Phase Sensitive Innovations, that has commercialized that technology.”
Other strengths at Delaware include a user facility for epitaxial growth, emerging research in the field of quantum science and technology, and on the educational side, a new multidisciplinary quantum science and engineering graduate program that would feed into CHIPs Act-related semiconductor activities. Phillips sees partnerships among universities as key because of important factors such as redundancy of facilities, where a partner can offer their facility to another partner in the case of something such as a clean room issue or equipment failure. They can also work together to incubate startup companies and offer their facilities to these new-born entities.
“It’s very difficult and prohibitively expensive to establish a cleanroom facility on your own but being able to take advantage of an open nanofab that they can use to develop their products is critical for further innovation and new technologies,”
Phillips said. For a potential Mid-Atlantic university partnership for semiconductor research and development, Phillips sees a synergistic relationship where partners with complementary strengths would be able to create new centers where faculty from various semiconductor subcategories would be able to combine expertise and resources to create some- thing bigger.
“I think there are some really powerful selling points in enabling, say a Mid-Atlantic, New York to Washington, DC type of a research hub,” Phillips said. “We would have a geographical advantage given all the universities and other entities around us, particularly in the defense sector.”