The Center for Nanophase Materials Sciences (CNMS) at Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) offers the national and international user community access to staff expertise and state-of-the-art equipment for a broad range of nanoscience research, including nanomaterials synthesis, nanofabrication, imaging/microscopy/characterization, and theory/modeling/simulation.
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Staff Expertise
Capabilities and Instruments
Research Impact
Become a CNMS User
Users join a vibrant research community that brings together ORNL research staff, technical support staff, students, postdoctoral fellows, and collaborating guest scientists. The program accommodates both short-term and long-term collaborative research projects. Access is obtained through a brief peer-reviewed proposal with no charge for users who intend to publish their results in the open literature. Access is available on a cost-recovery basis for research that is proprietary and not intended for publication or public dissemination. CNMS also acts as gateway for the nanoscience community to benefit from ORNL’s neutron sources (SNS and HFIR) and computational resources.
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CNMS Research Groups
Functional Hybrid Nanomaterials
To understand and control nanomaterials synthesis and assembly to elicit special functionalities by integrating real-time diagnostics and advanced characterization techniques.
Functional Atomic Force Microscopy
To advance scanning probe microscopies and spectroscopies to capture the nanoscale origins of functional properties in materials for energy and information.
Scanning Tunneling Microscopy
To understand and control the correlations of atomic structure with electronic, magnetic, and transport properties in quantum materials through the development of scanning tunneling microscopy methods.
electron Microscopy and Microanalysis (eMMA)
To understand the structure, chemistry, and function of materials through the development and application of advanced state-of-the-art analytical microscopy, atom probe tomography, in situ S/TEM, and cryo-EM techniques.
Macromolecular Nanomaterials
To understand and design novel macromolecular and deuterated nanomaterials using cutting-edge synthesis and characterization methods.
Nanofabrication Research Laboratory
To advance nanofabrication processes to evoke and elucidate the effects of scale and confinement on the function of nanomaterials and soft matter.
Nanomaterials Theory Institute
To deliver advanced theoretical, computational, and machine learning capabilities that can provide a foundation for fundamental understanding and prediction of materials and their function, and chemical processes at the nanoscale.
Data NanoAnalytics
To accelerate the development of autonomous research tools and workflows capable of scientific discovery in nanoscale synthesis and characterization by combining simulations, physics-driven machine learning methods, and instrument automation.
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Other Nanoscale Science Research Centers
Center for Functional Nanomaterials
Located at Brookhaven National Laboratory
The Molecular Foundry
Located at Berkeley Lab
Center for Integrated Nanotechnologies
Located at Sandia and Los Alamos National Laboratories
Center for Nanoscale Materials
Located at Argonne National Laboratory