Summary
In 2016, at the request of the Director of the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine1 formed the Panel on Assessment of the Center for Nanoscale Science and Technology at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (referred to in this report as “the panel”) and established the following statement of task for the panel:
An ad hoc committee will assess the scientific and technical work performed by the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) Center for Nanoscale Science and Technology. The panel will review technical reports and technical program descriptions prepared by NIST staff and will visit the facilities of the NIST laboratory. Visits will include technical presentations by NIST staff, demonstrations of NIST projects, tours of NIST facilities, and discussions with NIST staff. The panel will deliberate findings in a closed session panel meeting and will prepare a report summarizing its assessment of the quality of the technical work performed at the Center.
The Center for Nanoscale Science and Technology (CNST) is one of two user facilities established by NIST, the other being the NIST Center for Neutron Research (NCNR), which is also located at the NIST facility in Gaithersburg, Maryland. The CNST has two components with complementary purposes—the research program, composed of three groups (Electron Physics, Nanofabrication Research, and Energy Research), which makes up the NanoLab, and the Nanofabrication Facility (NanoFab). Together, the NanoLab (with its next-generation tools and access to collaborative research with its multidisciplinary research staff) and the NanoFab (with its comprehensive toolset, which includes advanced capabilities for lithography, thin film deposition, and nanostructure characterization) make up the user facility. Individuals from beyond NIST and elsewhere at NIST can interact with the CNST through collaborations with the scientific research staff in the NanoLab’s research program and through use of the NanoFab to fabricate structures or devices.
The mission of the CNST is to “operate a national, shared resource for nanoscale fabrication and measurement and develop innovative nanoscale measurement and fabrication capabilities to support researchers from industry, academia, NIST, and other government agencies in advancing nanoscale technology from discovery to production.”2
GENERAL OBSERVATIONS
The CNST is a national asset with some leading-edge, best-of-kind equipment and extremely competent research and technical staff. Most of its programs are well conceived and have demonstrated impressive accomplishments. Some projects, however, are in fields that are led by other organizations (e.g., photovoltaics and nanobiomedical research), and this introduces the question as to why these CNST
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1 Effective July 1, 2015, the institution is called the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. References in this report to the National Research Council are used in an historical context identifying programs prior to July 1.
2 National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), Center for Nanoscale Science and Technology 2010, NIST SP 1121, Gaithersburg, Md., March 2011, p. 4.
projects were brought into existence. Additionally, more effort needs to be put into improved strategic planning. While several groups and activities are organized properly, some projects are not placed logically; for example, nanobiomedicine is currently housed with the Energy Research Group (ERG). Some projects do not have sufficient synergy between objectives and resources; for example, the set of tools and skills developed in the Electron Physics Group (EPG) seems to be less suited to the stated goal of neuromorphic3 device development (which includes building test circuits in the NanoFab and developing new microspecies to measure them) than to areas such as the fundamental physics of quantum systems or quantum computing.
Despite these issues, the majority of the staff, as well as the research conducted within the CNST, are excellent. The CNST, however, is not yet optimally serving the community of potential users. CNST management does not appear to have taken a proactive approach to publicize the availability of this national resource, which includes both staff and facilities, to the scientific and engineering community at large. It is very important that this be done. This could substantially increase productivity, as judged on the basis of publications, collaborations, and growth in users. The CNST could improve its visibility through greater presence at conferences and interaction with industry, striving for more external awards, and producing a larger number of high-quality publications.
The metrics for NanoFab usage and impact need to be more logical and transparent. The NanoFab needs to maintain accurate year-to-year data on the number of users, the sources of these users, and the amount of income derived from users.
Furthermore, the CNST could make a greater impact, particularly in the Washington, D.C., metropolitan area, since the NanoFab is operating well below capacity. The annual federal budget of the CNST was reported as $37 million, which includes $5 million for the purchase of equipment and service contracts. Revenues generated by the external users, which includes industry, academia, and other government agencies, were approximately $1.2 million in 2015, according to the data provided to the panel. This translates to less than 3 percent of the total budget. This appears to be very low given that the CNST is primarily a user facility.
Given that the CNST is a user facility, it may be useful to have an external advisory board of stakeholders that includes users—for example, faculty and laboratory directors from academia and industry, and others as appropriate. Such an advisory board might be especially valuable should user demand ever exceed the availability of equipment, and if the CNST were to develop a strategic plan for the expansion involving new equipment responsive to changing community needs. Additionally, the recommendations of the previous (2011) National Research Council assessment panel, An Assessment of the National Institute of Standards and Technology Center for Nanoscale Science and Technology: Fiscal Year 2011,4 do not seem to have been addressed by the CNST. Concerned that the recommendations of the current panel may be similarly ignored, the panel concluded that it would be important to conduct the next assessment within 2 years.
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3 Neuromorphic systems are required to develop cognitive processors as well as to understand how the brain works and how to measure brain function and dysfunction. A NIST project in the Physical Measurement Laboratory utilizes superconducting single flux quantum (SFQ) and spintronics devices to mimic neural systems. These neuromorphic systems can operate a billion times faster than biologic neural systems. NIST is developing novel metrology, analogous to functional MRI, to measure synthetic cortical function. A key goal is to be able to measure spatial and temporal correlations in high-density spiking systems to understand memory and data processing in neural systems (from NIST, “Neuromorphic Systems,” https://www.nist.gov/programs-projects/neuromorphic-systems, updated August 2, 2016).
4 NRC, An Assessment of the National Institute of Standards and Technology Center for Nanoscale Science and Technology: Fiscal Year 2011, The National Academies Press, Washington, D.C. 2011.
KEY CONCLUSIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS
General Conclusions and Recommendations
NanoFab usage is well below capacity. The CNST management does not appear to have taken a proactive approach to publicize the availability of this national resource, which includes both staff and facilities, to the scientific and engineering community at large. It is very important that this be done. The metrics for NanoFab usage and impact need to be more logical and transparent. The NanoFab needs to maintain accurate year-to-year data on the number of users, the sources of these users, and the amount of income derived from users.
Recommendation 1: CNST management should take a proactive approach to publicize the availability of CNST resources and to increase the usage of CNST resources. CNST management should support this effort by maintaining accurate year-to-year data on the number of users, the sources of these users, and the amount of income derived from users.
Given that the CNST is a user facility, it would be useful to have an external advisory board of stakeholders, including users. This could include faculty and laboratory directors from academia and industry, and others as appropriate.
Recommendation 2: CNST management should consider establishing an external advisory board of stakeholders, including CNST users.
The recommendations of the 2011 NRC assessment panel do not seem to have been addressed by the CNST. Concerned that the recommendations of the current panel may be similarly ignored, it would be important to conduct the next National Academies assessment within 2 years.
Recommendation 3: CNST management should arrange the next National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine assessment within 2 years.
The Nanofabrication Facility
The detailed quantitative information needed for the evaluation of the NanoFab was difficult to obtain during the review of the facility. This is unacceptable for a user facility with this level of federal support. Detailed tracking of all users is routinely done by leading research fabrication facilities, and it is an essential tool for understanding usage trends and making rational decisions about staffing, equipment upgrades, and new equipment acquisition. The NanoFab management needs to adopt similar practices, and if already implemented, to make the results available to reviewers in a timely manner.
Recommendation 4: CNST management should initiate a process that provides, maintains, and makes publicly available detailed data on all CNST users that identifies the number of facility users per equipment, their organizational affiliations, their fields of interest, the amount of income they provide to the CNST, and the outcomes of their facility utilization. NanoFab data should not be conflated with that of the NanoLab. The former consists of commercially available equipment designed to fabricate and measure micro- and nanostructures. The latter develops and hosts unique equipment, generally designed for exquisitely detailed measurements.
The NanoFab management has not yet begun significant recruiting efforts, and additional growth is possible because the facility is far from capacity. Approaching capacity is to be viewed as a positive
goal—more users decrease idle equipment time, spreading costs more broadly. New users would also increase the impact of the facility.
Recommendation 5: The NanoFab management should begin an outreach program to recruit new users.
The CNST director and the staff expressed the desire to see more users from a broader range of disciplines and external organizations, particularly from industry; however, a strategic plan with a roadmap and metrics for achieving this goal was not articulated. Developing and applying metrics to manage operations would enable the benchmarking of performance against that of similar facilities and would also be a means of goal setting for strategic planning.
Recommendation 6: CNST leadership should define a strategic plan with a roadmap and associated metrics for the NanoFab and should benchmark NanoFab operations against those of other nanofabrication facilities.
Its high level of sustained funding and collaboration with the process research team gives the NanoFab the opportunity to be a leading national resource. They need to be more engaged with the fabrication community.
Recommendation 7: CNST management should become more outward looking and more broadly engaged with the fabrication community beyond the traditional mechanisms of research collaborations and peer-reviewed publications. CNST management should increase service in professional organizations, sharing of fabrication protocols, and proliferating best practices (such as the NanoFab Equipment Management Operation [NEMO]). CNST management should also consider playing a leadership role in the University/Government/Industry Micro/Nanotechnology (UGIM) Symposium and the National Nanotechnology Coordinated Infrastructure (NNCI) program.
Electron Physics Group
Questions remain regarding CNST’s strategic priorities with respect to the EPG. The set of tools and skills developed in the EPG seems to be less suited to the stated goal of neuromorphic device development (which includes building test circuits in the NanoFab and developing new microspecies to measure them) than to areas such as the fundamental physics of quantum systems or quantum computing. The information processing domain represents an emergent opportunity and encompasses biomimetic and hybrid transdisciplinary approaches that transcend any single team’s scope.
Recommendation 8: The Electron Physics Group and the CNST should consider how best to position its work on neuromorphic versus neuronal architectures and approaches to information processing.
EPG’s ultralow-temperature scanning tunneling microscope (ULT-STM) represents a unique measurement and integrated sample and tip preparation infrastructure. The fundamental research using this tool needs to continue, along with work that enables further enhancements of this multimodal measurement tool.
Recommendation 9: The CNST should continue to support the ultralow-temperature scanning tunneling microscope (ULT-STM) for continued success.
EPG collaborations outside of NIST are overwhelmingly academic. In particular, there currently appear to be few EPG collaborations and weak linkages with industrial users. For example, participation in workshops that bring together scientific leaders and identify potential options that enable future strategic measurement challenges may help to catalyze the next generation of scientific inquiry. Additionally, increasing engagement with external professional societies could increase the impact of the EPG investigators and the CNST.
Recommendation 10: The Electron Physics Group should increase its collaborative engagements with external users and its investment in external professional activities, such as conference organization, editorships, or society governance.
Energy Research Group
The ERG has very good scientific expertise, facilities, and equipment. The exclusive focus on energy may not be appropriate, given the range of related research topics and proposed future initiatives. Long-range strategic planning for the group was not clearly articulated, nor was it apparent in discussions. The ERG needs to develop a strategic plan to outline intended directions for the coming year and into the following 5 years.
Recommendation 11: The CNST should develop a strategic plan that reconsiders the mission and research focus of the Energy Research Group to more accurately reflect its breadth of research activities. As part of this effort, the CNST should consider whether there is sufficient “customer pull” for continued, significant efforts in photovoltaics.
ERG personnel are well qualified and active, with a good record of publications and involvement in the technical community. The ERG, however, is small and its staff are highly specialized. Opportunities for growing the group in more general directions need to be considered.
Recommendation 12: The CNST should evaluate the staffing of the Energy Research Group in terms of alignment with its mission and ability to carry out that mission. The CNST should strive for group staffing levels with sufficient critical mass to address important measurement challenges commensurate with its mission and strategic directions.
Research being conducted at the ERG is of high quality. The researchers need to enhance collaborations with external users. This will lead to increased visibility of ERG researchers. This will also lead to greater use of this valuable national resource.
Recommendation 13: The Energy Research Group researchers should become more engaged in the professional community via society committees and trade associations.
Nanofabrication Research Group
The diversity and quality of user-driven research projects under development in the NRG demonstrate the excellent scientific and technical expertise this group provides. It is difficult, however, to identify the alignment of the existing research activities with the group’s mission. This current disconnection makes it difficult to assess the projects relative to the mission.
Recommendation 14: The Nanofabrication Research Group should redefine its mission to align it to the group’s existing research or, if it does not have the flexibility to redefine its mission, it should realign the research projects to the current mission.
In line with the NRG’s mission, the NRG needs to enhance engagement with the fabrication community through talks at conferences, organizing workshops and conference sessions, and society service.
Recommendation 15: The Nanofabrication Research Group (NRG) should increase engagement with the fabrication community through strategic presentation of talks at conferences, organizing of workshops and conference sessions, and society service. The NRG should consider convening or participating in existing industry/academic/government consortia. One such example is the Microphotonics Center at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, which sponsors a road-mapping activity and has spring and fall meetings. The NRG should consider building a similarly vibrant community around its strengths in nanoelectromechanical systems, precision measurement, and/or atomic scale microscopy.
