Five-year Strategic Plan

The Center for Functional Nanomaterials (CFN) is a Nanoscale Science Research Center operated for the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) at Brookhaven National Laboratory (BNL). As a national scientific user facility, the CFN mission is to empower nanoscience research, by providing essential capabilities and technical expertise, achieving breakthrough discoveries through internal research, and rapidly adapting to evolving national research priorities. CFN strategy emphasizes adaptiveness, such that we impact current national initiatives, and acceleration, where we empower the community to innovate more rapidly.

The CFN is delivering major impacts in areas of national interest, including quantum information science and technology (e.g., one-of-a-kind platform for automated heterostructure fabrication), microelectronics (e.g., hybrid materials for next-generation lithography), energy materials (e.g., operando studies of catalysts), transformative manufacturing (e.g., integrated self-assembly), and AI/ML (e.g., AI assistant at x-ray beamline).

The CFN is able to rapidly and smoothly adapt to the evolving needs of national priorities and the broader materials research community, by investing strategically in coherently-defined thematic areas.

• Nanomaterial Synthesis by Assembly: Design strategies for synthesis of new materials with targeted functionality by assembly of nanoscale components, for rapid explorations of vast landscapes of complex structural motifs. CFN research on self-assembly devises new approaches to interaction- and process-controlled assembly of components, discovers the governing principles underlying self-assembly, and understands assembly pathways using advanced characterization and computational methods. CFN is leading in the development of automated synthesis-by-assembly approaches. Our ultimate goal is to enable inverse design of nanomaterials, leveraging understanding of nanoscale components, processing effects, structural design, and device integration.
• Quantum Nanomaterials: Investigates how quantum phenomena emerging at the nanoscale, such as collective excitations, topological states, correlated phases, coherence or entanglement, can be controlled to enable next-generation quantum technologies. The ultimate goal is to guide the assembly of nanomaterials and devices that can provide programmable quantum states by design. CFN research encompasses superconducting thin films, 2D van der Waals layers, correlated crystals, and functional quantum devices such as quantum emitters and circuits. By integrating precise materials synthesis with multimodal microscopy and spectroscopy across a wide spectral and temperature range, from microwaves to x-rays and from room temperature to the millikelvin regime, combined with modeling of lattice, charge, orbital and spin degrees of order, the CFN seeks to uncover the fundamental principles that govern quantum functionalities in nanomaterials.

• AI-Accelerated Nanomaterial Discovery: Implement artificial intelligence and machine learning (AI/ML) to streamline the material synthesis-characterization-analysis loop. While historically the discovery and development of new materials has followed an iterative process of synthesis, measurement, and modeling, suitable integration of advanced characterization, robotics, and machine-learning can potentially radically accelerate this process. The CFN has an established record of discovering nanomaterials by applying new materials synthesis strategies, advanced characterization, and machine learning. Integrating these efforts will enable autonomous platforms for iteratively exploring material parameter spaces, which have potential to revolutionize materials science by uncovering fundamental links between synthetic pathways, material structure, and functional properties. The CFN is aggressively pursuing frontier AI technologies (including large language models and agentic motifs) to empower next-generation science campaigns. CFN envisions a Science Exocortex wherein researchers leverage a swarm of AI agents that operate as a coherent whole, allowing the human to undertake more ambitious science.
• Multimodal Analysis of Nanomaterials in Operando Conditions: Accelerates research by monitoring materials, via multiple probes, in their operating environments. Interrogating materials at the nanoscale to derive atomic-level information on physicochemical processes under operating conditions remains a forefront and evolving nanoscience research field. The CFN will augment its comprehensive suite of instruments for operando studies of nanomaterials such as catalysts, photocatalysts, and battery electrodes. The CFN will increasingly integrate operando capabilities with data management and computational resources for advanced AI-accelerated data analytics.

The CFN strategic plan is grounded in foundational pillars of an expert staff, an engaged user community, and a collection of strategic partners — all working safely and supported by excellent operations and a portfolio of state-of-the-art capabilities. The CFN is working toward higher levels of user engagement and a broader pool of users, through strategic partnerships with larger initiatives aligned with national initiatives, technical workshops customized to communities with specialized needs, and by visibly promoting user science accomplishments. During the next five years, the CFN will invest in new instrumentation, make major upgrades to distinctive capabilities, and develop new data-analytics and data-management methods to maintain its status as a cutting-edge user facility.

A high priority is continuing to enhance the partnership between CFN and NSLS-II, through: investing further in partner x-ray nanoscience instruments; working together to identify opportunities to create unique, new capabilities; and advancing joint projects with NSLS-II staff and users that exploit the complementary properties of x-rays and electrons to collect multimodal information on the same samples.