User Fees

For NCSU users, the monthly cap is $750 per student per project. For all other academic institutions, the monthly cap is $1250.

If processing for academic users is performed by the NNF staff, an additional staff rate of $51.61/hour is charged for all processes and this charge is not capped. The same rate rate also applies to all consulting, troubleshooting or any other work involving the NNF staff. The staff rate is $100/hour for industrial projects.

NNF offers free processing to new faculty and undergraduate students. To learn more about these programs, please go back to the home page and click on the "get started" button.

Note: The cost of materials and supplies for all standard NNF processes is included in the user fees unless noted otherwise. NNF also offers chemicals and other supplies for sale for non-standard processes and experiments. The sales price of these items is determined by adding a handling fee of 10% to the cost.

1: All users will be charged a "precious metal fee" for special sputtering target materials such as Au and Pt. For industrial users (remote and on-site) this fee is $214.50/deposition run for up to 300nm thickness. For all academic users, the charge is $150.00/deposition run for up to 300nm thickness and this fee is not capped.

2: Users, who need precious metal evaporation (e.g. gold and platinum) in their fabrication processes regularly are expected to purchase their own metal pellets. We use 1/8 inch long, 1/8 inch diameter pellets of 99.99% purity. Users are also recommended to bring their own evaporation crucibles, which eliminates the need of removing the remaining metal from the NNF crucible. NNF will keep a limited supply of gold and platinum for occasional academic and industrial users. The current charge for gold and platinum is $90 / gm. The amount used is determined by weighing the crucible before and after evaporation. Please note that gold can also be deposited by DC Sputtering.

3: All users will be charged an additional materials fee for SiO₂ deposition. The fee is $154 per 100nm using diethylsilane, or $75 per 100nm using TEOS.