The BNC Facilities
The BNC building was completed in 2005 at a cost of $58M, of which, $42M came from three generous private gifts. The 187,000 sq. ft. building includes the Scifres Nanofabrication Laboratory (SNL), a 25,000 sq. ft. cleanroom with research space rated at 1, 10 and 100 microparticles per cubic foot, an extraordinary level of cleanliness. Within the SNL is a bio/pharma cleanroom that facilitates research at the juncture of nano- and bio-technologies. This unique capability puts the BNC at the forefront of facilities designed for research at this important frontier. The BNC is connected by an enclosed walkway to the Bindley Bioscience Center, creating a seamless physical connection between the biology and nano communities. Another 22,000 sq. ft. of dedicated laboratories outside the SNL provide specialized spaces with features such as temperature control to ±0.01 °C, floating inertial-mass floors for vibration isolation (NIST A-1 standard), and shielding from electromagnetic interference. BNC process water is the purest in the world, exceeding that of the best used for the manufacture of silicon integrated circuits. The tools and instruments of the BNC are equally impressive in their capabilities, including an electron beam lithography system capable of patterning lines as narrow as 6 nanometers over a wafer and an electron microscope capable of imaging the atomic structure of nanocrystals in a high-temperature reactive atmosphere.
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