UO becomes home to major nanoscience facility

Lokey Labs
Stephen Golledge, director of the CAMCOR Surface Analytical Facility, with Soyoung Kim, a senior in biology at the UO, in the Lorry l. Lokey Laboratories.
The sandstone setting surrounding the UO's newly opened Lorry I. Lokey Laboratories is expected to help the world's most powerful instruments see even more deeply into previously invisible realms at the extremely tiny nanoscale and even much smaller.

Experts say the underground building's exceptional site and innovative mechanical engineering place it among the world's "quietest" nanoscience research facilities. Recent tests showed it exceeds national standards for protecting delicate instruments from vibrational interference by a factor of two to four.

The building's resources are available around the clock, seven days a week, as a "high-tech extension service" for academic and industry scientists based in Oregon's Silicon Forest.

UO President Dave Frohnmayer said the building's innovative design is intended to bring researchers from across the spectrum into a collaborative setting. He emphasized that all UO faculty members should consider it theirs, because the facility's special capabilities have applications in areas ranging from art history to zebrafish.

Lorry I. Lokey Laboratories is a signature research center associated with the Oregon Nanoscience and Microtechnologies Institute, a consortium that includes the University of Oregon, Oregon State University, Portland State University, Oregon Health & Science University, Pacific Northwest National Laboratories, and industry partners throughout the region.

The new building, named for journalist-turned-philanthropist Lorry I. Lokey, is the first major construction for the UO College of Arts and Sciences since 1990. The initial phase of the planned Integrative Science Complex, it is part of $250 million worth of university construction made possible by Campaign Oregon: Transforming Lives.