Infrastructure Upgrade for U.C. Berkeley Atomic, Nanoscale, and Quantum Characterization Facility

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This award is funded under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (Public Law 111-5). The purpose of this award is to upgrade and repair basic experimental infrastructure within the University of California Berkeley Atomic, Nanoscale, and Quantum Characterization Facility (ANQCF) housed in the two basement levels of Birge Hall, on the U.C. Berkeley campus. This space is devoted entirely to research and has been the primary laboratory facility for the U.C. Berkeley Physics Department for the last 45 years. The infrastructure in this facility is no longer adequate, as it is plagued by a noisy electromagnetic environment, acoustically and structurally propagated vibrations, poor temperature control, particulate contamination, a failing cooling water system, and lack of proper inter-laboratory connectivity. These experimental limitations will be rectified through a major upgrade of ANQCF infrastructure systems. The renovations will enable a new generation of experimental activities within the ANQCF that will probe the ultimate limits of spatial resolution, electromagnetic sensitivity, as well as time, frequency, and energy resolution. The improved experimental environment created by the proposed renovations will allow carbon nanostructures to be investigated at the single-atom level and in new physical regimes. New phenomena will be explored in quantum fluids composed of superfluid helium as well as degenerate atomic gases. The dynamics of individual spins will be explored using new local probe and magnetometry techniques, and the limits of quantum information manipulation will be tested in both atomic and solid state qubit systems. The intricate mechanical systems of biology will be explored and manipulated at the single molecule level. The proposed improvements in ANQCF infrastructure will also allow broader participation in science and engineering through a number of programs aimed at under-represented minorities, students at all levels, and community college instructors. The Nation's science and engineering enterprise will be impacted through enhanced training of scientific personnel, new science and technological breakthroughs, strategic partnerships in distributed energy research networks, and technology transfer to dynamic Silicon Valley / Bay Area industries. Critical technologies that involve new materials, electronic devices,and nanostructure applications in the areas of computation, communications, chemical and photosensing, medicine, and energy will be impacted.