The new Center for Nanophase Material Science (CNMS) at Tennessee's Oak Ridge National Laboratory, starting construction in May 2003, is one of five sites being developed for this pioneering investigation. Sponsored by the federal Department of Energy (DOE), the $64-million, 80,000-gsf CNMS will be built next to the Spallation Neutron Source (SNS), which will generate the most intense pulsed neutron beams in the world on completion in 2006.

(The other four DOE sites include the Molecular Foundry at the Lawrence Berkeley National Lab in California; the Center for Integrated Nanotechnologies, to be built jointly by Los Alamos and Sandia National Laboratories in New Mexico; the Center for Nanoscale Materials, located at Argonne National Lab; and the Center for Functional Nanomaterials at Brookhaven National Lab in New York.)

A key tenet of the new "complexity" paradigm is that the largest opportunities for discovery and innovation exist at the convergence, or interfaces, of several scientific disciplines. Nanoscale research at Oak Ridge will focus on creating synergies among three different types of science: neutron science, furthered by the neutron-scattering capabilities of the $1.4-billion SNS; synthesis science, the ability to make advanced materials and new materials, along with a tremendous range of property measurement capabilities; and theory, modeling, and simulation, also referred to as computational nanoscience.

The implications for facility design are far-reaching.

"In order to bring together the people who have these separate pieces of knowledge and expertise, the Center must foster interactions among both resident staff and visitors from multiple disciplines," says Douglas Lowndes, Ph.D., scientific director of the CNMS at Oak Ridge National Lab (ORNL).

Four Key Nanoscience Drivers

Of the CNMS's four key nanoscience drivers, one is specific to the Oak Ridge campus, while the other three apply to nanoscale investigation in general. All are complex.

The first driver is access to the capabilities of the SNS, currently the largest civilian construction project in the world.

"Neutron scattering provides unique information about nanoscale materials and phenomena which is complementary to that provided by other techniques," explains Lowndes. "The SNS will improve by slightly more than a factor of 10 the neutron intensity available today. The other SNS instruments are being designed to be the best-of-class worldwide. The consequence is that the flux delivered to an experiment at SNS will be between a factor of 50 and a factor of 200 higher than at any other neutron center."

The second driving force is the need for facilities for controlled synthesis and directed assembly of functional nanomaterials.

"In particular, we need to be able to put together functional macromolecular assemblies in various media: on surfaces, in solutions, and in solid form, either in thin films or in bulk material," says Lowndes. "We would like to take advantage of self-organization that occurs on the nanoscale, in principle giving us a way to link up to the patterning and assembling that we can do on a larger scale with conventional lithography."

The third is the need for instruments that allow imaging and manipulating materials on the nanoscale—not just standard electron beam instruments, high resolution scanning and transmission electron microscopes, and high resolution scanning probes, but new devices that allow researchers to manipulate, measure, and even assemble nanoscale materials and structures while actually viewing them.

Finally, nanoscience goes hand-in-glove with the development of new computational capabilities for modeling and simulation of both the materials and the phenomena, in particular accurate new theoretical tools with predictive capabilities.

"The end goal here is being able to link computation with the synthesis of new materials via three steps: multi-scale modeling (computations allowing us to relate atomic and nanoscale properties up to the resulting properties on the macroscale), design of new structures with specific properties, and finally, virtually synthesizing materials and theoretically evaluating pathways by which we might grow desirable materials," says Lowndes.

Translating Drivers Into Facilities

Co-located with the SNS and supporting facilities about two miles from the main Oak Ridge campus, the CNMS consists of a four-level lab/office building with an attached single-story Nanofabrication Research Lab (NRL). With the need to support experimentation in chemistry, physics, materials science, and biology, the new building will accommodate a wide range of tools, processes, expertise, and researcher collaborations. Scientists will be working both in wet labs with a heavy demand for hood space and dry labs with and without hoods.

The 10,000-gsf NRL will house clean and environmentally controlled rooms, electron microscopes, nanoscale patterning (e-beam writer/lithography and photolithography), and facilities for manipulation and integration of soft and hard materials.

The building's infrastructure needs are challenging, ranging from high power loads for laser synthesis, furnaces, etc., to provision for toxic gas use. Labs with heavy or vibration-sensitive equipment will be located on the ground floor, while the cleanrooms will offer capabilities for patterning and synthesis and adaptability for future experimental needs. Design features that provide the required environment for operating the sophisticated characterization and lithography tools include proper grounding to prevent EMF, minimized power into and adjacent to the most sensitive characterization tool rooms, a motor generator set to provide "clean power" to tools, and dielectric breaks in metal piping and ductwork to prevent current flow.

To avoid electromagnetic, vibrational, and acoustic interference, concentrated electrical loads (transformers and motors) as well as magnets, radio frequency, noise, and vibration sources are located away from sensitive tools. Concrete room walls minimize transmission of "acoustic noise" while eight-inch-thick floors ensure tool stability and cleanroom fans meet semiconductor industry standards.

A portion of the four-story CNMS is reserved for the Nanomaterials Theory Institute (NMI), which will bring together world leaders in theory, modeling, and simulation. A second-floor computer room will contain servers and a back-up system along with a dedicated computer for the functions under investigation, while a fiber optic link from the NMI to the main campus will provide high-speed access to the world-class, teraflop-speed parallel computing already in place at ORNL's Center for Computational Sciences.

Interaction

With its role as a highly collaborative research center promoting multidisciplinary convergence, the CNMS incorporates a host of design features to foster scientist interaction.

The laboratories on each floor are located across the corridor from a row of enclosed offices for full-time and long-term visiting staff. Short-term guests, post-doctoral scholars, and graduate students are housed in four-person offices in a central area, in close proximity to their more permanent counterparts.

"We also don't separate theory, modeling, and simulation from the experimental groups," says Lowndes. "The third and fourth floors will have labs and offices for experimenters quite close to the computing labs for theorists, so they will undoubtedly encounter each other in the shared lobby area and in the corridors on their way to their offices."

Each floor has a conference room for seminars and other small group meetings. Casual areas have been strategically designed to encourage impromptu contact. Attractive glass-enclosed passageways on the second, third, and fourth levels connect the CNMS to the SNS Central Lab and Office Building (CLO), where a 350-seat auditorium, cafeteria, exercise room, and other amenities are located to draw occupants together. The walkways themselves feature lounge areas off to the sides for informal gathering, promoting convergence and interaction.

The Joint Institute of Neutron Sciences (JINS), a future project funded by the state of Tennessee, will be built across the parking lot from the CLO and CNMS. The JINS will provide housing and classrooms for users while creating additional opportunity for cross-disciplinary mingling.

Construction Efficiencies

ORNL has taken advantage of the parallel timelines of the SNS and CNMS projects to realize several economies in design, construction management, and utilities infrastructure.

M+W Zander, the architecture firm responsible for the CLO, also designed the new CNMS, assuring that both structures would be aesthetically compatible.

"It was cost effective to use the same AE professionals who designed the adjacent CLO," says Jack Stellern, CNMS conventional facilities project manager. "They were familiar with the site utilities and the CLO utilities that were needed for the CNMS. They could also reuse a number drawings that had been prepared for the CLO exterior."

Using the SNS utility infrastructure—central utility building, cooling tower, air and DI water distribution systems—also generated savings. A 1200-ton chiller will be added to the central utility building to provide adequate chilled water capacity for the CNMS.

Finally, ORNL engaged Jacobs Engineering, already working on the SNS site, as the construction manager in an incentivized arrangement.

"Important factors for us are safe working conditions, protecting the environment, and keeping on schedule and on budget," says Stellern. "Jacobs Engineering is currently coordinating the general contractors on the SNS site right now and will be able to seamlessly integrate the CNMS into the construction effort."

Schedule

Before approving the performance baseline for the CNMS building and equipment in September 2002, Oak Ridge held two successive planning workshops together with the national scientific community to determine research focus areas with the greatest scientific challenges and technological opportunities. The first gathering took place in October 2001, and the second in June 2002

"It's very important in planning a highly collaborative research center to obtain input at an early stage," comments Lowndes. "The second planning workshop, which attracted more than 300 participants from 88 different institutions, included a symposium on nanoscale science and neutron scattering, tutorials, illustrative talks, and three successive rounds of breakout sessions."

The facility design and independent project review were completed by the end of 2002. In early February 2003, ORNL received authorization to proceed with construction, scheduled to kick off in May and run for 20 months. Equipment installation and phased occupancy should get underway in February 2005, with full operation slated for no later than September 2006.

By Nicole Zaro Stahl