[labnetwork] Imaging/Characterization Cores vs. Fabrication Cores - Cost vs. Income

[Hathaway, Malcolm R]

Hey All,

Happy Summer!

A question has come up here about relative expenditures and subsidy levels between fabrication labs and imaging/characterization labs, in core centers where such functionality is combined.  Here at Harvard we have all three under one roof at CNS.

I did a https://nanobot.chat/search around this topic but didn't find much.  (nanobot.chat is an AI enabled search of Labnetwork, for those who may not have heard about it).

I seem to remember this or a similar topic being addressed at a previous UGIM meeting, but my recollection is hazy...

Thus, a few questions:

How many core centers combine Imaging and Characterization and Fabrication (cleanroom) under one umbrella?

For those that do combine them, do you generally find that each section is able to "pull its own weight" financially?   Does either one ever "break even"?

Is income from the nanofab used to subsidize imaging/characterization efforts, or vice versa?

Is each unit financially independent and, as such, survives on partial subsidies from the university that are not considered collectively?

And lastly, what sort of expense/income breakdown (percentage-wise) have you seen between such units, if they are treated collectively as one big core center.

Apologies if this delves too deeply into sensitive fiscal areas.

This might be a good topic for some sub-group at the upcoming UGIM, if it is not already on the agenda.


Mac

Mac Hathaway
Systems, Process, and Characterization Engineer
Harvard CNS




-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <https://mtl.mit.edu/pipermail/labnetwork/attachments/20260528/a81f79ae/attachment.html>