This “21st Century Machine Shop” is dedicated to micro- and nano-manufacturing and analysis of integrated and functional miniature devices and systems in a Class-1000 environment. The fabrication section features a Class-10 biological cabinet with ultrasonic cleaning and spin coating equipment, a multi-purpose DC/RF sputtering system of metals and non-metals, a RF plasma etching station with reactive action etching (RIE) function, a wet bench for chemical etching, a precision micro-balance, a soft bake plate and a hard bake convection oven, and a state of the art mask aligner with infrared back-side alignment, wafer bonding and cold embossing / nano-imprinting functions.

The micro-/nano-analysis section features optical microscopes, and a scanning electron microscope (SEM) with a X-ray microanalysis detector (EDX) and electron beam lithography (EBL) scanner for production of lithographic masks. It also features an atomic force microscope (AFM) with electric force microscopy (EFM) and magnetic force microscopy (MFM) cantilever heads, as well as an electrochemical cell for wet microscopy. A second AFM unit is also available and configured for scanning probe nanolithography (SPL), as well as a scanning tunnelling microscope (STM) and a non-contact, white-light precision profilometer.

The laboratory is housed in a modular positive-pressure clean room facility and is complemented by the darkroom facility in A062 for development of photographic masks for soft lithography. Its equipment is networked and operated under modern microscopic imaging and nanolithography software.