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The National Nanotechnology Infrastructure Network's computational
project (NNIN/C) is a multi-university initiative, funded by the
National Science Foundation (NSF) as part of NNIN, to establish a user
accessible national computing resource for nanotechnology. This network
is open to the academic and industrial research community and provides
hardware resources and simulation tools dedicated to nanoscience
research. Strong technical and scientific support is provided by staff
experts so that the tools and resources can benefit interdisciplinary
research. The software tools include commercial software packages for
design, characterization and analysis of nanometer scale devices as well
as some of the latest academic advances in nanoscale modeling and
simulation software.
Major computation resources, consisting of hardware, software, and
most importantly staff support, are available at 4 NNIN sites: Harvard , Cornell, Stanford,
and Michigan.
Among the goals and strategies of NNIN/C are:
- Assemble and create a wide suite of robust software that addresses
critical issues in the molecular and electronic structure and physical
and chemical dynamics of artificial and natural nanoscale structures.
- Maintain and, where necessary, modify these simulations to address a
widening scope of research problems.
- Provide strong technical support and thorough instruction on the
software tools so as to permit even novice users to progress rapidly to
the solutions of their own unique research problems.
- Provide web-based graphical user interfaces (GUIs) for user-friendly
access to simulation tools as well as web-based resources for
instruction and feedback to the community of researchers employing the
same tools.
Critical to the NNIN/C effort is the high level staff support
offereed at each participating site. Each site program features a Ph.D.
level computational research scientist with extensive experience and
knowledge of the literature and the computational art who can support,
advise, and even collaborate with users at all levels.
NNIN/C has a growing base of users based on our current hardware
facilities and a suite of
programs which form the backbone of the project. NNIN/C comprises a
broad community that includes both users and contributors, including:
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Experimentalists fabricating and measuring nanoscale devices for which
numerical simulations can optimize the output either by shortcutting
device design or analyzing results of measurements
- Theorists and computational scientists seeking to employ
state-of-the-art simulations in nanoscience but lacking access either to
the hardware or software, or more crucially, lacking the information on
how to obtain or use such software packages
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Researchers interested in particular materials or device configurations
for which currently available simulation tools do not exist or need to
be extended
- Computational nanoscientists with a specific research code that they
wish to make more broadly available to the nanotechnology community.
NNIN can assist in making the code more robust and user friendly, and
host it so that it can be used by a broader community.
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NNIN Computation Portal
NNIN Computation Sites
Activities and Resources
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