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SCIENCE AT THE CNMS
The
Center for Nanophase Materials Sciences (CNMS) at Oak Ridge National
Laboratory (ORNL) is a Department of Energy / Office of Science
Nanoscale Science Research Center (NSRC) operating as a highly
collaborative and multidisciplinary user research facility. The
CNMS is one of five DOE
NSRCs that form an integrated national user network. Each NSRC
is associated with other major national research facilities at
one
of DOE’s National Laboratories, enabling their application to nanoscale
science and technology. The central organizing concept of CNMS
is to provide unique opportunities to understand nanoscale materials,
assemblies, and phenomena, by creating a set of scientific synergies
that will accelerate the process of discovery.
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AFM
images of Fe nanodots and nanowires on flat and stepped
NaCl surfaces (edge length 750nm)
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To accomplish
this, the CNMS integrates nanoscale science with three highly synergistic
national needs:
• Neutron Science, using the Spallation Neutron Source,
SNS, and the recently upgraded High Flux Isotope Reactor, HFIR.
• Synthesis
Science, or what we call “science-driven synthesis,” facilitated
by extensive and novel synthesis capabilities in the first three
CNMS Research Capabilities areas listed at the bottom of this page
and by a new Nanofabrication
Research Laboratory.
• Theory,
Modeling and Simulation, through establishing a new Nanomaterials
Theory Institute, with close connections to the staff expertise
and computational capabilities of ORNL's Center for Computational Sciences
and the new national Leadership Scientific Computing Facility.
The CNMS's
research capabilities provide a broad community of scientists, engineers,
and students from throughout the nation, but
particularly the southeastern United States, with ready access to
the full range of tools and collaborative capabilities needed for
nanoscale research, in a single location.
Scientific
Themes
CNMS research focuses on understanding, designing, and controlling the dynamics, spatial chemistry, and energetics underlying functionality and properties of nanoscale materials, systems, and architectures.
Electronic and Ionic Functionality on the Nanoscale
- Developing
instrumentation and techniques to image and understand
the functionality of nanoscale materials and interacting assemblies
- Research
on optoelectronic, ferroelectric, ionic and electronic transport, and catalytic phenomena at the nanoscale
- Understand energy transfer at nanoscale interfaces
Functional
Polymer and Hybrid Architectures
- Advancing
our fundamental understanding of the links between polymer structure,
property
and function that are controlled by weak intermolecular
interactions and interfacial phenomena
- Understanding
the role of macromolecular topology on self-assembly
- Understanding how the optoelectronic properties of conjugated material architectures and hybrid systems are determined by their structure
Collective Phenomena in Nanophases
- Builds
on strong theoretical and experimental efforts focusing on understanding
the emergence and remifications of collective
behavior
- Developing
and applying multiscale methods to understand and predict how atomic structure, nanoscale confinement, and quantum mechanical effects impact electronic processes/properties within materials and across interfaces
- Understanding nature's 'rule of composition; to enable synthetic nanostructured systems with capabilities rivaling those of living systems
CNMS Research Capabilities
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