Facilities

PI Fenning’s dedicated 795 sq. ft. laboratory is located in the Nanoengineering department at UC San Diego.

 

 

Relevant facilities for synthesis in the laboratory include:

  • Temperature-controlled spin coater (MTI)
  • Rotary evaporator (Buchi)
  • Two wet chemical fume hoods
  • 2 MW DI water system (Millipore Advantage A10)
  • 25” Dual Zone Tube Furnace with vacuum flanges (MTI)
  • 1” Single Zone Tube Furnace with vacuum flanges (MTI)
  • Glove box

Relevant characterization equipment includes:

  • Temperature-controlled I-V tester with Class A solar simulator (Newport)
  • Light-/potential-biased QE measurement using a Cornerstone 260 monochromator optimized for 250-1800 nm and an SR830 lock in amplifier
  • Transient and quasi-steady-state photoconductance with submicrosecond resolution (Sinton Instruments)
  • Illumination dependent Voc for assessing resistive losses in solar cells (Sinton Instruments)
  • Photo- and electro-luminescence setup (under construction)
  • Four-point probe (Signatone)
  • 6-channel potentiostat with AC/DC capabilities for electrodeposition, capacitance-voltage and current-voltage measurement, and impedance analysis (Bio-logic)
  • SRI GC with TCD and methanizer+FID for permanent gas and C1-C6 detection
  • Customized electrochemical cell:

Optical (Lumerical) and device (Synopsys Sentaurus, PC1D) computational modeling is carried out on a dedicated workstation in the laboratory.

The Fenning Research Group leverages the 9,000 sf shared-use Materials Research Center in the UC San Diego Nanoengineering Department, equipped with:

 

 

  • XRD
  • UV-Visible spectroscopy
  • Fourier Transform Infrared Spectroscopy
  • Raman and µ-PL microscope
  • Atomic force microscope
  • SEM/electron backscatter diffraction

 

The on-campus cleanroom (Nano3, Calit2) contains 7,000 sf of Class-100 and Class-1000 space surrounded by 3,000 sf of analytical and design labs for materials characterization. Clean room equipment of particular relevance includes:

 

 

  • Patterning: photolithography stations and mask aligners, sub 8-nm E-beam lithography (Vistec)
  • PVD: DC and RF sputtering systems & multiple E-beam and thermal evaporators
  • Thin film deposition: Beneq combined plasma- and thermal-atomic layer deposition tool, plasma-enhanced chemical vapor deposition tools, oxidation and diffusion furnaces.

 

The Nano3 characterization facility includes:

  • SEM/EDS/E-beam induced current
  • Scanning probe microscopes
  • Dual-beam cryo-FIB (FEI) capable of removing selected areas for TEM and nano-XRF investigation with minimal implant damage at cryogenic temperatures.