GIANTFab - About

The Glovebox Inert Atmosphere (N2) Thin-film Fabrication and Testing (GIANTFab) core facility at Northwestern University provides students and investigators with the unique capability of fabricating and testing thin-film optical, optoelectronic, and electronic devices in a completely inert environment. At GIANTFab, users can receive training on spin-coating, vacuum deposition, and solar cell testing protocols while collecting data that advances their studies. We are located in Tech J415, for a virtual tour of our facility, click here.

GIANTFab users are able to move substrates and devices from spin-coating and vacuum deposition equipment to the testing stand without ever exposing them to atmosphere at any time, allowing measurements to be made without loss of device efficiency or other device degradation. Users are also welcome to bring other sample holders such as cryostat chambers or testing jigs into the GIANTFab gloveboxes for inert atmosphere transport to spectrometers or other analytical instrumentation.

GIANTFab was originally established in 2019 at the Institute for Sustainability and Energy at Northwestern (ISEN) with support from the Office of Research at Northwestern. GIANTFab's initial target research area is the manufacture and testing of organic, perovskite, and hybrid organic - perovskite solar cells, however all of our instrumentation is available for use on any thin-film project. Coming in late 2020 or early 2021 will be equipment to test light-emitting devices such as organic and perovskite LEDs. If you are interested in light-emitting devices and want to be notified when that capability is available, please contact us.