The Molecular Foundry is a

nanoscience The nanoscopic scale (or nanoscale) usually refers to structures with a length scale applicable to nanotechnology, usually cited as 1–100 nanometers (nm). A nanometer is a billionth of a meter. The nanoscopic scale is (roughly speaking) a lo ...

user facility located at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory in

Berkeley, California Berkeley ( ) is a city on the eastern shore of San Francisco Bay in northern Alameda County, California, United States. It is named after the 18th-century Irish bishop and philosopher George Berkeley. It borders the cities of Oakland and E ...

, and is one of five Nanoscale Science Research Centers sponsored by the

United States Department of Energy The United States Department of Energy (DOE) is an executive department of the U.S. federal government that oversees U.S. national energy policy and manages the research and development of nuclear power and nuclear weapons in the United Stat ...

Overview

The Molecular Foundry was founded in 2003. The building was completed on March 24, 2006. The current director, Kristin Persson, was appointed director of the Molecular Foundry in 2020. She follows permanent directors Jeff Neaton (2013-2019), Omar Yaghi (2012-2013), and

Carolyn Bertozzi Carolyn Ruth Bertozzi (born October 10, 1966) is an American chemist and Nobel laureate, known for her wide-ranging work spanning both chemistry and biology. She coined the term "bioorthogonal chemistry" for chemical reactions compatible with ...

(2006-2010). Users of the Molecular Foundry are provided with free access to instruments, techniques and collaborators for nanoscience research that is in the public domain and intended for open publication. Proposals for user projects are solicited to promote interdisciplinary collaboration among scientists studying nanoscale phenomena in materials science,

physics Physics is the natural science that studies matter, its fundamental constituents, its motion and behavior through space and time, and the related entities of energy and force. "Physical science is that department of knowledge which r ...

, electrical engineering,

environmental engineering Environmental engineering is a professional engineering discipline that encompasses broad scientific topics like chemistry, biology, ecology, geology, hydraulics, hydrology, microbiology, and mathematics to create solutions that will protect and ...

biology Biology is the scientific study of life. It is a natural science with a broad scope but has several unifying themes that tie it together as a single, coherent field. For instance, all organisms are made up of cells that process hereditary i ...

and chemistry in seven interdependent facilities.

Center facilities

* Imaging and Manipulation of Nanostructures, led by Facility Director Alex Weber-Bargioni and was founded by Miquel Salmeron. ** Characterization and manipulation of nanostructures—from "hard" to very "soft" matter—combining electron microscopy,

optical microscopy Optics is the branch of physics that studies the behaviour and properties of light, including its interactions with matter and the construction of instruments that use or detect it. Optics usually describes the behaviour of visible, ultravio ...

and scanning probe microscopy. *

Nanofabrication Nanolithography (NL) is a growing field of techniques within nanotechnology dealing with the engineering (patterning e.g. etching, depositing, writing, printing etc) of nanometer-scale structures on various materials. The modern term reflects on a ...

- The

nanofabrication Nanolithography (NL) is a growing field of techniques within nanotechnology dealing with the engineering (patterning e.g. etching, depositing, writing, printing etc) of nanometer-scale structures on various materials. The modern term reflects on a ...

facility is led by Facility Director

Stefano Cabrini Stefano is the Italian form of the masculine given name Στέφανος (Stefanos, Stephen). The name is of Greek origin, Στέφανος, meaning a person who made a significant achievement and has been crowned. In Orthodox Christianity the ach ...

and was founded by

Jeff Bokor Jeff is a masculine name, often a short form (hypocorism) of the English given name Jefferson or Jeffrey, which comes from a medieval variant of Geoffrey. Music * DJ Jazzy Jeff, American DJ/turntablist record producer Jeffrey Allen Townes * ...

. ** Advanced

lithography Lithography () is a planographic method of printing originally based on the immiscibility of oil and water. The printing is from a stone (lithographic limestone) or a metal plate with a smooth surface. It was invented in 1796 by the German a ...

and thin-film processing emphasizing integration with chemical and biological nanosystems and the development of nanoscale

electronic Electronic may refer to: *Electronics, the science of how to control electric energy in semiconductor * ''Electronics'' (magazine), a defunct American trade journal *Electronic storage, the storage of data using an electronic device *Electronic co ...

, magnetic and

photonic Photonics is a branch of optics that involves the application of generation, detection, and manipulation of light in form of photons through emission, transmission, modulation, signal processing, switching, amplification, and sensing. Though ...

devices. * Theory of Nanostructured Materials, led by Facility Director David Prendergast and was founded by Steven Louie. ** Theoretical support to guide understanding of new principles, behavior and experiments—including electrical transport in nanoscale molecular junctions, self-assembly of biological nanostructures and computation of spectroscopy at hybrid nanoscale interfaces. * Inorganic Nanostructures, led by Facility Director Jeff Urban and was founded by A. Paul Alivisatos. ** The science of

semiconductor A semiconductor is a material which has an electrical conductivity value falling between that of a conductor, such as copper, and an insulator, such as glass. Its resistivity falls as its temperature rises; metals behave in the opposite way. ...

, carbon and hybrid nanostructures—including design and synthesis of nanocrystals,

nanowires A nanowire is a nanostructure in the form of a wire with the diameter of the order of a nanometre (10−9 metres). More generally, nanowires can be defined as structures that have a thickness or diameter constrained to tens of nanometers or less ...

and nanotubes—and study of their electronic applications. * Biological Nanostructures, Led by Facility Director Corie Ralston and was founded by

Carolyn R. Bertozzi Carolyn Ruth Bertozzi (born October 10, 1966) is an American chemist and Nobel Laureate in Chemistry, Nobel laureate, known for her wide-ranging work spanning both chemistry and biology. She coined the term "bioorthogonal chemistry" for chemic ...

. ** New materials based on the

self-assembly Self-assembly is a process in which a disordered system of pre-existing components forms an organized structure or pattern as a consequence of specific, local interactions among the components themselves, without external direction. When the ...

biopolymers Biopolymers are natural polymers produced by the cells of living organisms. Like other polymers, biopolymers consist of monomeric units that are covalently bonded in chains to form larger molecules. There are three main classes of biopolymers, c ...

and bio-inspired polymers, new probes for bio-imaging and

synthetic biology Synthetic biology (SynBio) is a multidisciplinary area of research that seeks to create new biological parts, devices, and systems, or to redesign systems that are already found in nature. It is a branch of science that encompasses a broad ran ...

techniques to re-engineer organisms and create hybrid

biomolecules A biomolecule or biological molecule is a loosely used term for molecules present in organisms that are essential to one or more typically biological processes, such as cell division, morphogenesis, or development. Biomolecules include lar ...

to interface with devices. * Organic and Macromolecular Synthesis, led by Facility Director Yi Liu and was founded by Jean Fréchet. ** Studies of "soft" materials—including synthesis of organic molecules,

macromolecules A macromolecule is a very large molecule important to biophysical processes, such as a protein or nucleic acid. It is composed of thousands of covalently bonded atoms. Many macromolecules are polymers of smaller molecules called monomers. The ...

polymers A polymer (; Greek '' poly-'', "many" + ''-mer'', "part") is a substance or material consisting of very large molecules called macromolecules, composed of many repeating subunits. Due to their broad spectrum of properties, both synthetic an ...

and their assemblies, with access to functional systems, photoactive, organic-inorganic hybrid and porous materials. * National Center for Electron Microscopy (NCEM), led by Facility Director Andy Minor. NCEM was founded in 1983 as an independent DOE user facility and merged with the Molecular Foundry in 2014. ** Use and development of an array of electron microscopes, offering capabilities for materials characterization at high resolution.

User Program

The Molecular Foundry has a user program that gives access to the center's expertise and equipment to external researchers. The program is open to scientists from academia, industry, and research institutes worldwide. The program enables collaboration between Molecular Foundry staff scientists, technical support staff, students, postdoctoral fellows, and collaborating guest scientists. Access is obtained through a brief, peer-reviewed proposal and is free for users who intend to publish their results.

References

{{authority control Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory Nanoscale Science Research Centers Laboratories in California United States Department of Energy national laboratories University and college laboratories in the United States Research institutes in the San Francisco Bay Area