Facilitating nanoscale research

Construction has begun on a new user facility for nanoscale science at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL) in California. The Molecular Foundry, set into a leafy hillside and overlooking the bay to San Francisco, will bring together a raft of nanoscale synthesis, fabrication, and characterization techniques under one roof. The center intends to make the most of its location. It is a setting that is important, not for the beautiful surroundings, but as a place where investigators from academic, government, and commercial laboratories can make use of state-of-the-art instrumentation and expertise free of charge, and where the most can be made of LBNL's other facilities.