Core User Facilities (CUF)
The Core User Facilities (CUF) consist of a collection of advanced manufacturing and metrology centers that help forward advanced materials, manufacturing, and research for university researchers and industry. The CUFs comprise an ecosystem of five cost-recovery centers, including the Advanced Manufacturing and Machining Facility (AMMF) at LSU; the Materials Manufacturing, Testing, and Evaluation Facility (MMTEF) at LSU; the Shared Instrumentation Facility (SIF) at LSU; the Institute for Micromanufacturing (IfM) at LA Tech; the Coordinated Instrumentation Facilities (CIF) at Tulane. The CUF Members participate in and contribute to educational and outreach activities as part of the Consortium for Innovation in Manufacturing & Materials (CIMM) Program while supporting fundamental progress in manufacturing and materials research. The CUF provide a lasting and sustainable platform for integration that is accessible to researchers across the state of Louisiana and in industry.
The CUF Mission encompasses the following objectives:
- Provide access to sustainable, dedicated, state-of-the-art, experimental facilities for research and development in advanced manufacturing.
- Develop and establish sustainable advanced manufacturing training and education programs based on the CIMM-CUF material and human resources.
- Continuously incorporate new experimental facilities relevant to advanced manufacturing so as to continuously make the state-of-the-art available to its academic, industrial and government customers.
A recent CUF success (June 2020) is a grant from the Army Research Office that will bring a state-of-the-art Scanning Transmission Electron Microscope (S TEM) to the LSU SIF.