The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) has awarded a $11 million grant for UC Berkeley’s Center for Integrated Precision and Quantum Measurement. The new facility is expected to contribute to basic research into fundamental physics and to the development of practical nanotechnology. UC Berkeley will match the grant with $8.7 million in funding for the center. It will be located in the basement of the new Campbell Hall being built to replace the existing Campbell Hall facility. The new lab will provide a more stable, buffered environment than is now available for making measurements at the nanoscale. The environment will have low EMI, low vibrations, low noise, and temperature stability to reduce interference with experiments. According to physics professor Michael Crommie, “If you have too much noise, then it contaminates the measurements and obscures the science that we are trying to study.” The center’s researchers will likely be making measurements at the level of individual molecules or even atoms, or of even a fraction of a wavelength of light. Learn more about the proposed center and possible research challenges in the original UC Berkeley announcement online.
NIST-Funded Lab at Berkeley Will Be Low EMI, Low Vibration, and Low Acoustical Noise
