Center for Advanced Technologies and Optical Materials

Facilities

Center for Advanced Technologies and Optical Materials Core Facilities

The center laboratories are located on the first floor of the Osborne Science and Engineering Building at the University of Colorado at Colorado Springs (UCCS).

The Center managed facilities include:

Clean room, Device manufacturing, and Fabrication facility

Manufacturing and fabrication capabilities of the Center include a 500 sq. ft. class 10,000 cleanroom with photolithography processing capabilities. Installed equipment includes: Suss MicroTec MJB4 mask aligner, Karl Suss BA6 bond aligner, Alpha-Step 500 surface profiler, inspection microscope, hoods and deposition instruments.

The Center also host a fully equipped laboratory dedicated to the manufacture and fabrication of electro-optical devices. Available instruments include: GPD DS9000 auto dispensing system, VPI GS-200 automated glass scriber, OPG Avant ZIP inspection system, SCS spin-coaters, automated rubbing machine, UV curing furnaces and chambers, vacuum infiltration chamber and more than 100 sq. ft. of fully serviced hood space.

R&D and characterization facility

In addition to the manufacturing and fabrication facility, the Center offers specialized equipment to support research needs of faculty and industry. Facilities include:

  • Electro-optical characterization system. State of the art measurement instrument to characterize electro-optical devices, including but not limited to: liquid crystal devices, EO time response, VT response, pre-tilt angle, light holding ratio, color, haze and diffraction efficiency.
  • Dielectric characterization. Impedance analyzers, pico-ammeters and charge measurement. Polarization measurement station.
  • Nano-characterization. Atomic force microscope, Fluorescent confocal microscope and a state of the art SEM with electron lithography capability.
  • Fast optics. Ultra-fast pulsed laser system.
  • Spectroscopy. FTIR, UV-VIS and Spectrophotometer.
  • Smoke generation, detection and characterization lab.

Materials synthesis and preparation

Among many standard synthesis and processing resources the Center has a versatile state of the art MicroFab JetLab4 Drop-on-Demand printer system with integrated CCD cameras, heated platen and print heads, raster and vector printing, synchronized vertical head motion on the fly, on the fly printing in any direction and drop and fiducial image analysis. A Retsh PM200 high energy milling machine for nanomaterials and colloids preparation and a dual extrusion 3D printer are also available.

image of lab equipment

Complementary to the previous facilities, the Center also has access to the following instruments:

  • Rigaku SmartLab multipurpose X-ray system
  • Brillouin Light Scattering System
  • Molecular Beam Epitaxy with various analyzers
  • Microwave Measurement system
  • Ferromagnetic Resonance systems 10 GHz, 24 GHz, 35-55 GHz
  • QD SQUID
  • Sputtering deposition system
  • Machine shop
  • Instrumentation design facility
  • Optics design facility