Overview
The UW-MRSEC has developed an effective facilities philosophy that includes creation of new capabilities where needed and improvement of existing facilities, professionally maintained and made accessible to all users on campus, industry and other research groups across the country. Our aims are to 1) provide new capabilities that enable outstanding research within the center; 2) offer accessibility to users both in and external to the center (enabled by our industrial consortium and our leading role in the Materials Facilities Research Network-MRFN); and 3) leverage center resources so as to increase their impact on local infrastructure for materials research.
The UW-MRSEC provides full or partial support for a variety of central facilities. A particular focus is facilities for characterization of materials on the nanoscale, but it also supports characterization equipment for greater length scales. This equipment is available to on-campus, and in most cases, off campus users. Access and charges are determined by the management policy of each individual facility.
MRFN Activities
As founding members of the MRFN, we have extended this impact and accessibility via UW-developed software (WiRemote) that enables remote access to instrumentation for education and research. Major instruments in the MSC are now on-line to four Wisconsin educational sites (including technical colleges) and our PREM partners in Puerto Rico (UPR). This capability, which we will expand to all MFRN members, is routinely used for education of students and gives researchers access to equipment not available at less-privileged institutions. In addition, we have placed some of our GLOW computational sites at UC Santa Barbara and at the UPR, thereby translating the UW’s recognized leadership in computer resource management to new sites currently under development.
