Molecular Foundry

Molecular Foundry, a United States Department of Energy national laboratory, is a premier research facility located at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory in Berkeley, California. The facility is dedicated to the development of new materials at the nanoscale, with a focus on energy applications and biotechnology, in collaboration with University of California, Berkeley, Stanford University, and Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Researchers from Harvard University, California Institute of Technology, and University of California, Los Angeles also utilize the facility to advance materials science and nanotechnology, often in conjunction with IBM Research, Google, and Microsoft Research.

Introduction

The Molecular Foundry is a Department of Energy-funded facility that provides users from Academia, Industry, and Government with access to cutting-edge nanofabrication and characterization tools, enabling the development of new materials and technologies, such as those being researched at MIT Lincoln Laboratory and Sandia National Laboratories. The facility is part of the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, which is managed by the University of California and is a United States Department of Energy national laboratory, working closely with Los Alamos National Laboratory and Oak Ridge National Laboratory. The Molecular Foundry is one of five Nanoscale Science Research Centers (NSRCs) in the United States, along with the Center for Functional Nanomaterials at Brookhaven National Laboratory, the Center for Nanoscale Materials at Argonne National Laboratory, and the Stanford Institute for Materials and Energy Sciences at SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory.

History

The Molecular Foundry was established in 2006, with funding from the United States Department of Energy Office of Basic Energy Sciences, in collaboration with National Science Foundation, National Institutes of Health, and Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency. The facility was designed to provide a comprehensive suite of tools and expertise for the development of new materials at the nanoscale, with a focus on energy applications and biotechnology, building on research from Bell Labs, Xerox PARC, and Microsoft Research. The Molecular Foundry is part of the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, which was established in 1931 by Ernest Lawrence, the inventor of the cyclotron, and has since become a leading research center in the fields of physics, chemistry, and materials science, with collaborations with CERN, Fermilab, and European Organization for Nuclear Research.

Research_and_Development

The Molecular Foundry supports a wide range of research activities, including the development of new materials for energy storage and energy conversion, such as batteries and solar cells, in collaboration with Tesla, Inc., General Motors, and Volkswagen Group. Researchers at the facility are also working on the development of new materials for biomedical applications, such as tissue engineering and drug delivery, with partners like Johnson & Johnson, Pfizer, and Merck & Co.. The facility is equipped with a range of tools and instruments, including transmission electron microscopes and scanning tunneling microscopes, which are used to characterize the properties of materials at the nanoscale, often in conjunction with IBM Thomas J. Watson Research Center and Google X.

Facilities_and_Equipment

The Molecular Foundry is located in a 94,000-square-foot building on the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory campus, which is situated in the Berkeley Hills overlooking the San Francisco Bay Area. The facility is equipped with a range of state-of-the-art tools and instruments, including clean rooms, lithography tools, and microscopy instruments, such as those used at Intel Corporation and Texas Instruments. The facility also has a range of computational resources, including high-performance computing clusters and data storage systems, which are used to support the development of new materials and technologies, in collaboration with Amazon Web Services, Microsoft Azure, and Google Cloud Platform.

User_Programs

The Molecular Foundry offers a range of user programs, which provide researchers from Academia, Industry, and Government with access to the facility's tools and expertise, including partnerships with University of Oxford, University of Cambridge, and Massachusetts Institute of Technology. The facility has a user program that allows researchers to propose and conduct experiments at the facility, with support from National Science Foundation, National Institutes of Health, and Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency. The facility also offers a range of educational and training programs, including workshops and summer schools, which are designed to provide researchers with the skills and knowledge needed to use the facility's tools and instruments, often in collaboration with Stanford University, Harvard University, and California Institute of Technology.

Scientific_Impact

The Molecular Foundry has had a significant impact on the development of new materials and technologies, with research conducted at the facility leading to advances in fields such as energy storage, energy conversion, and biotechnology, with collaborations with NASA, European Space Agency, and Japanese Aerospace Exploration Agency. The facility has also played a key role in the development of new materials and technologies, such as nanowires and graphene, which have the potential to revolutionize a range of industries, from electronics to aerospace engineering, with partners like Boeing, Lockheed Martin, and Northrop Grumman. The Molecular Foundry has collaborated with researchers from University of California, San Diego, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, and Georgia Institute of Technology to advance materials science and nanotechnology, often in conjunction with IBM Research, Google, and Microsoft Research. Category:Research institutes