Pricing

The NanoScale Fabrication and Characterization Facility (NFCF) operates on a fee basis.  Internal users will provide a 32 digit University of Pittsburgh account number from their supervisor or PI in FOM in order to support their research and work in the lab.  External users are invoiced and payment may be submitted via check.

If you have any questions, needs, or concerns related to below details, please email nfcf@pitt.edu for assistance

The below chart indicates the cost of service for each equipment listed in the lab, please review all details. Prices are updated for use starting July 1, 2021, and forward.

Please note that for any of the equipment, staff provided training is required as prerequisite to independent use of the machine. The costs are applicable during training in the same way that they are for service hours. 

For Staff Hours Related to Training/Service

Staff Assistance Hourly Cost	Internal Pitt Users	External Non-Profit	External Commercial
Training Hours- equipment training hours	$60	$80	$140
Service hours- staff scientific processing	$60	$80	$140

Please note that all staff hours are to be charged as an add-on fee, to be calculated as follows: 

• Staff Hours (shown here) + Related Equipment Usage Hours (as indicated below) = Total Amount 

For Cleanroom/Fabrication Facility

Cleanroom Hourly Pricing by NFCF Service	Internal Pitt Users	External Non-Profit	External Commercial	Equipment included in service offering:
CR Service 1: Fabrication Services	$17	$45	$70	e-beam Evaporator (Thermionics) HMDS Oven  Hoods(4) (Acid, Lithography Developer/ spinner) Keyence VK-X3000 Confocal Keyence VHX-X1  Mask Aligners (2: Suss and Quintel)  Optical Microscope  Parylene Deposition  Plasma Asher (March PX500) Plasma Enhanced Chemical Vapor Deposition (PECVD)  Rapid Thermal Anneal (RTA - SSI Solaris100) Reactive Ion Etcher (RIE by Trion) Surface Profiler Thermal Evaporation Angstrom Thin Film Analyzer Filmetrics F40 Tube Furnace Oxidation/ Annealing
CR Service 2: Advanced Lithography Capabilities	$33	$90	$130	Anric Technologies AT410 ALD Direct Laser Writer (MLA100 and MLA150)  ADT Dicer  Electron Beam Lithography (EBL Raith e-line and EBPG 5150 100kV)  Nanoscribe
CR Service 3: Advanced Deposition and Etching Techniques	$33	$75	$115	Angstrom Sputtering System  ICP-RIE PlasmaTherm (Cl and Fl) Parylene Coater (PDC 2010) Plasma Enhanced Atomic Layer Deposition System (PE-ALD Fiji G2)  Plassys E-Beam Evaporator  Sputter/ Evaporation System (AJA)
Add-on: Staff Time (hourly, as detailed above)	$60	$80	$130	As Detailed above

*First hour of any equipment usage is full price

For Characterization Facility

Characterization Hourly Pricing by NFCF Service	Internal Pitt Users	External Non-Profit	External Commercial	Equipment included in service offering:
Characterization Service 1: Characterization Services	$20	$50	$80	Atomic Force Microscope (AFM) Differential Scanning Calorimeter (DSC)  Ellipsometer  Raman Microscope  Simultaneous Thermal Analyzer (TGA) UV-Vis Optical Microscope
Characterization Service 2: Transmission Electron Microscope	$55	$115	$150	FIB-SEM Scios Dual Beam FEI System  Environmental Transmission Electron Microscope (Hitachi 9500)  Transmission Electron Microscope (JOEL 2100F)
Characterization Service 3: Scanning Electron Microscope	$40	$100	$140	Electron Probe MicroAnalyzer (EPMA)  Zeiss SIGMA 500VP SEM Apreo SEM with EDAX EDS and EBSD
Characterization Service 4: X-Ray Diffraction	$30	$60	$90	Bruker X-Ray Diffractometer Panalytical X-Ray Diffarctometer XPS ULVAC-PHI Genesis XRF MALVERN EPSILON 1 XRF analyzer
Characterization Service 5: Aberration-corrected TEM	$82	$145	$210	Titan Themis G2 200 Probe Cs Corrected Scanning TEM
Characterization Add-on 1: General Sample Preparation (hourly)	$20	$50	$75	Allied E-Prep 4x Grinder / Polisher Cressington Carbon Coater Denton Sputter Coater Epoxy Vacuum Impregnation System PDMS preparation area  PIE Tergeo EM Plasma cleaner  Buehler VibroMet 2 Vibratory Polisher
Add-on: Staff Time (hourly, as detailed above)	$60	$80	$140	As Detailed above

*First hour of any equipment usage is full price

Other Important Costs and Incentive Programs

Consumables

Deposition Metals available in Plassys and AJA deposition systems and Angstrom Thermal Evaporation System

Material	Unit	Cost
Gold (Au 99.999%)	Nanometer	$3.00
Platinum (Pt 99.999%)	Nanometer	$1.00
Palladium (Pd 99.995%)	Nanometer	$.90
Silver (Ag 99.999%)	Nanometer	$.05
Gold Palladium custom mix (AuPd 70/30 AT% purity 99.95%)	Nanometer	$2.00
Metals-Other currently available	Various	No Charge
Various other available supplies	All listed in FOM	All listed in FOM

Consumable Fee Schedule

Attendance Fees

No-Show and Cancellation Fee Policy	Internal Pitt Users	All External
Cancellation greater than 24 hours prior to reservation	No Charge	No Charge
Cancellation less than 24 hours prior to reservation No Show on any reservation 30 minutes after start time	Equipment access sanctions	Equivalent cost 1 hour equipment

Internal Users Cap Per PI Trial Program

Available for Internal University of Pittsburgh Users only.

An Equipment usage cap will be implemented with a monthly/ yearly notch to enable cost-prediction for grant proposals.

Academic monthly cap per PI group: $2,750 per month.

Academic yearly cap per PI group: $27,500 per fiscal year.

These caps apply only to equipment use.  Training, sample/ process service, consumables, and cancellation/ no-show fees are not capped and will be billed as a surcharge.