The MCP is the core facility at Johns Hopkins University that serves as a hub for interdisciplinary materials research and characterization through a suite of advanced tools to process and examine materials from the macroscale to the atomic scale. JHU has invested in a new state of the art facility with >13,000 sq. ft. of lab, classroom and office space in the landmark Stieff Silver foundry building–a Modern Foundry in an old Silver Factory. The MCP gathers all new tools for testing physical properties, fabrication of new materials, and characterization of inorganic and organic materials in a state-of-the-art vibration and electromagnetic field free environment. The MCP is fully staffed with specialists and administrators to ensure proper maintenance and streamline administration. The MCP facility at the Stieff Silver building includes office space for visiting researchers, classrooms for teaching, seminars and public outreach.

The Stieff building is designed with future equipment in mind and all efforts have been made to create the best possible rooms for the most sensitive electron microscopes. Our new electron microscopes will be placed in our Type I rooms, which are low vibration, electromagnetic field-free, acoustically dead environments with passive cooling panels with low air current flow, and adjacent control rooms. This ensures the top performance of instruments. Vibration-producing equipment such as roughing pumps, etc. are placed in the equipment chases that are adjacent to every instrument room. The entire lab complex is maintained through an advanced computer controlled system that monitors every aspect of temperature, humidity and pressure. A new preparation lab has been constructed that houses new cutting, grinding, polishing and coating equipment, and electrochemical polishers and a PIPS II ion mill supporting sample preparation.