Core Facilities and Instrumentation
High-end core facilities and instrumentation in the ASRC will allow scientists from across the CUNY campuses to expand the scope and scale of their research endeavors. The ASRC will also facilitate the development of integrated research collaborations both within and between CUNY and peer institutions across New York State, and nationally.
The core facilities will include a clean room for diagnostics and fabrication, and will include equipment for deposition, etching as well as an optical microscope, a surface profiler, an ellipsometer and a scanning electron microscope with e-beam writing. With these tools it is possible to both fabricate nanostructures and to study their physical, electrical and optical properties. With new methods of synthesis, scientists have been able to produce carbon nanotubes, metallic nanowires, nanosized semiconductor particles called quantum dots, self-repairing polymers, and many more new functional materials. Because the chemical, electrical, and optical properties of these materials are often size dependent, many possibilities exist for applications as well as for fundamental research.
For example, the size-dependent luminescent and electronic properties of inorganic nanoparticles has led to new systems for optical probes of biological processes and the tracking of particles within cells and organisms. In other applications, the ability of nanostructures to be containers for biomolecular systems has led to new methods of drug delivery. It is clear that nanoscience and nanotechnology will be a major source of interesting and important developments across a broad range of applications, and researchers at CUNY are working at the forefront of this field.
The ASRC will house state-of-the-art imaging facilities that will include:
- Nuclear magnetic resonance spectrometers (NMRs)
- Functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI)
- Cryo electron microscopes
- Transmission and scanning electron microscopes
- Confocal and fluorescent microscopes
These facilities will support the research of our structural
biologists as well as neuroscientists. At CUNY, neuroscience is already
a vast enterprise with some 55 laboratories throughout the University's
campuses and the allied New York State Institute for Basic Research in
Developmental Disabilities. Four crucial areas in neuroscience
highlight many of the mysteries of neurobiology that are yielding to
advances in scientific research done by outstanding CUNY faculty: nerve
injury and degeneration, addictive behaviors and drug abuse, the
development of nervous systems, and how we experience vital sensations
such as vision and smell.
The top floor of the ASRC, as well as a rooftop observatory,
will support research efforts in all aspects of remote sensing
including: sensor development, satellite remote sensing, ground-based
field measurements, data processing and analysis, modeling, and
forecasting. Further, because of an increasingly concern over one of
our natural resources - water - we have extended CUNY's environmental
initiatives, such as the Sustainability Initiative and Clean Fuels
Initiative, to include a Global Water component. A state-of-the-art and
collaborative workspace is included on this floor of the ASRC to ensure
the Initiative's early growth and long-term sustainability.
The Center will also house a 100-seat auditorium, a small education center that will feature key highlights of the five science disciplines supported in the building, and a cafe.