Dear Colleagues, I wish you the best for the New Year 2017. I hope have a new year full of health, joy and success. We had our end-of-the-year Birck faculty meeting on Dec. 16th. I know everybody is busy. I appreciate very much your great participation and those who couldn’t make it but emailed to provide a lot of useful input. Here is a brief summary from our meeting: · We had the highest number of new cleanroom users at the Birck Center in 2016 (102 users vs. previous record 99 in 2008; our average in the last five years was ~60 new users/year). · Equipment replacement/new equipment priorities: o Ion Mill (anticipated usage ~125 hours/week; ~22 users): up to $600K (including installation cost) o Optics (FLIM/AFM; supplementing 600K DURIP): $20K o Cleanroom items (Microscope Filmetrics 30K, programmable hot plate 6K, chuck for MA6): up to 50K o Siemens Building control upgrade: 100K o Burn box manifold: 15K o Hazardous Gas Cabinet controller: 15K The following items are pending some additional information: o Mask plate processor replacement: 55K (pending review of current mask reworks) o Micro-injection molding: 200K (pending preliminary trial results and review options to reduce entry barrier –mold cost) o PPMS new options (horizontal rotator, etc.): 45K · We provide monthly updates to faculty points-of-contact for each recharge center. Here is the latest update for December: o https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/62299037/Recharge%20Report%20December%20... o In order to have more resources to replace aging equipment, we plan to reduce subsidy in the operation of various centers. For example, the hourly rate to Raith is going to increase in order to achieve zero subsidy within two years. We look forward to receive feedback on ways we can improve the operation of all recharge centers serving broadest number of research groups at Purdue. * We have outstanding faculty at the Birck Center. Our operation will be improved if more faculty take ownership and are directly engaged. Dimitri and I have asked two faculty committees to provide feedback about our future directions (new space allocations, staff scientists, engagement with departments, etc.) as well as our current operations (usage policy, current space utilization and staff assignments, recharges). The committees will meet in January and we hope to provide update in our next Birck faculty in the summer. If you have any additional items for the committees, please let me know. Best regards, Ali