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Facilities

At MACES, undergraduate students, graduate students, postdoctoral fellows, faculty members, and summer MACES fellows have access to state-of-the-art instruments for synthesis, characterization, and performance evaluation, after training and certification. Major instruments and capabilities available in our faculty labs address:

UC Merced’s compact campus includes four shared user facilities: the Imaging Microscope Facility, the Environmental Analytical Lab, the Molecular Characterization Facility, and the Stem Cell Instrument Foundry.

In addition, some faculty have access to state-of-the-art instrumentation at Lawrence Livermore National Lab and the synchrotron facilities at Advanced Light Source and at SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory.

Shared Facilities - UCM

Stem Cell Instrument Foundry

This facility provides the tools for device fabrication such as a contact aligner, atomic layer deposition and profilometer.

Imaging Microscope Facility

Advanced imaging instruments such as Zeiss Gemini 500 scanning electron microscope with sub nanometer resolution, JEOL JR-2010 high-resolution transmission electron microscope and X-ray diffractometry (PANalytical X’Pert PRO Theta/Theta X-ray Diffraction).

Molecular Characterization Facility

The Molecular Characterization Facility houses several major instruments, including 400 MHz, 500 MHz and 600 MHz NMR spectrometers, a Horiba Fluorolog 3 fluorimeter, a Bruker Vertex 70 FT-IR spectrometer with a diamond crystal ATR accessory, a high resolution Thermo Electron Exactive Plus LC-MS for detecting small molecules, and a Q Exactive quadrupole Orbitrap LC-MS for high resolution detection of macromolecules.

Environmental Analytical Lab

Researchers can search for major and trace elements, selected chemical species and nutrients and organic compounds.

Center Mission

Our research, undergraduate, and graduate training and educational outreach programs are carefully designed to mirror NASA MIRO objectives. Our goals include:

  • Enhancing the scientific environment at UC Merced by recruiting and retaining high-caliber faculty and promising graduate students, as well as building facilities for materials science research facilities.

  • Impacting education at UC Merced and beyond by inspiring and training a new generation of STEM workers in a multidisciplinary materials research environment—particularly underrepresented and underprivileged students.

  • Driving research at UC Merced by promoting innovative and collaborative research in functional nanomaterials for energy and sensing for NASA missions and for needs here on Earth.