Nanofabrication/characterization facilities enable research and development
activities across a host of science and engineering disciplines. The collection of tools
and supporting infrastructure necessary to construct, image, and measure micro- and
nanoscale materials, devices, and systems is complex and expensive to establish, and it
is costly to maintain and optimize. As a result, these facilities are typically operated
in a shared-use mode. We discuss the key factors that must be considered to successfully
create and sustain such facilities. These include the need for long-term vision and
institutional commitment, and the hands-on involvement of managers in facility
operations. We consider startup, operating, and recapitalization costs, together with
algorithms for cost recovery and tool-time allocation. The acquisition of detailed and
comprehensive project and tool-utilization data is essential for understanding and
optimizing facility operations. Only such a data-driven decision-making approach can
maximize facility impact on institutional goals. We illustrate these concepts using the
National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) NanoFab as our test case, but the
methodologies and resources presented here should be useful to all those faced with this
challenging task.
Live human–robot interactive public demonstrations with automatic emotion and personality prediction
