The Center for Electrochemical Science and Engineering (CESE) at the University of Virginia is built on the foundation of the Applied Electrochemistry Laboratories. In 1986, the Virginia Center for Innovative Technology identified CESE as a Technology Development Center. CESE is a multi-disciplinary research effort which includes activities in the Departments of Materials Science and Engineering and Chemical Engineering, as well as interactions with Electrical Engineering, Computer Science, and Physics.

The Electron Microscopy Center at Argonne National Labs currently operates and administers seven full-time user instruments together with support facilities that include specimen preparation, image analysis and computational resources. a FEI Titan 80-300 ST, is the EMC's high resolution imaging TEM. It has a CEOS Cc/Cs corrector on the imaging side of the column to correct both spherical and chromatic aberrations.

The Electron Microscopy Service at UIC is a central facility offering access to scanning, transmission and scanning transmission electron microscopes on a pay-per-use basis. Investigators are encouraged to learn how to operate the instrumentation themselves, however, the EMS staff are available to carry out experiments for those investigators who only occasionally require electron microscopy service.

The Materials Science Center (MSC) at the University of Wisconsin-Madison is a resource for instrumentation and expertise to characterize materials and nanostructures. The MSC provides state-of-the-art instrumentation, support facilities, and expert technical assistance for research and education in materials, and serves materials science research needs of the University of Wisconsin-Madison, the state of Wisconsin, and the nation.

The TEAM I microscope at the National Center for Electron Microscopy is a double-aberration-corrected (scanning) transmission electron microscope (STEM/TEM) capable of producing images with 50 pm resolution. The basic instrument is a modified FEI Titan 80-300 microscope equipped with a special high-brightness Schottky-field emission electron source, a gun monochromator, a high-resolution GIF Tridiem energy-filter, and two CEOS hexapole-type spherical aberration correctors and a chromatic aberration corrector. The illumination aberration corrector corrects coherent axial aberrations up to 4th order, as well as 5th order spherical aberration and six-fold astigmatism. The imaging aberration corrector fully corrects for coherent axial aberrations up to 3rd order and partially compensates for 4th and 5th order aberrations.

NUANCE provide and continually update state-of-the-art and core analytical characterization instrumentation resources, with 24/7 open access, for all of NU and beyond. NUANCE aspires to be a pro-active and integral part of all scholarly activities related to characterization at and beyond NU.

Northwestern University Center for Atom Probe Tomography (NUCAPT) employs three-dimensional atom probe tomography (3DAP), which is a combination of a field ion microscope and time-of-flight mass spectrometer. 3DAP tomography involves the atom-by-atom dissection of a small volume of a material, where atoms at the apex of the specimen tip to are ionized and accelerate away from the positively-charged tip and towards a detector. The detector records both the ion's time-of-flight (and hence its mass-to-charge ratio - its chemical identity) and its impact position (location on the tip surface).

Quest is Northwestern University's high performance computing system. Housed at one of the University's secure Data Center facilities, it offers a large shared computational facility. Designed as a general use cluster, Quest supports the majority of HPC applications at Northwestern and is built to accommodate a wide variety of codes with great economy. Quest is used for projects that require high-performance capability due to computationally intensive tasks, such as intense numerical calculations or dealing with extremely large datasets.

The Poeppelmeier Crystal Growth Facility uses the traveling solvent zone method in a four mirror optical floating zone furnace. In an optical floating zone furnace, a molten liquid zone forms from the confluence of four light sources, reflected by four ellipsoidal mirrors. A liquid zone is established between a support rod and a dense feed rod of cylindrical shape. Growth occurs by upward translation of the liquid zone along the feed rod at growth rates ranging from 0.1 mm/hr to 1 cm/hr.

The Scanning Tunneling Microscopy (STM) lab at the University of Virginia houses an Omicron Nanotechnology Variable Temperature STM, which operates under ultrahigh-vacuum conditions. It is equipped with a preparation chamber with multiple deposition sources including electron beam evaporators, and thermal evaporation sources, and a high temperature heating system. A wide range of materials from metals to semiconductor and oxide surface is studied. We specialize in the investigation of surface reactions relevant to the initial stages of corrosion and oxidation, fundamental processes in thin film growth and the synthesis of nanoscale building blocks. In addition, we have expertise in electron spectroscopy (photoelectron spectroscopy, NEXAFS and related methods) and use synchrotron facilities such as Brookhaven National Laboratory, MaxLab or Advanced Light Source to target specific questions related to compositional and bonding analysis.