With a background in the technology industry and nationally known expertise in nanofabrication and electron-beam lithography, Don Tennant came to the Cornell NanoScale Science and Technology Facility (CNF) last August, ready to take it to the next level.

Tennant, a 1973 Cornell graduate in engineering physics, began serving as operations director of CNF the same day that George Malliaras became director of the facility.

Tennant's duties include overseeing day-to-day operations of the 700-user, 24-hour nanofabrication and research facility in Duffield Hall. He is also responsible for major decisions on spending, repairs and investments in equipment, as well as personnel reviews.

"I worry about the budget, our monthly income and all the details of running a business," explained Tennant, who worked at Lucent Technologies before coming to Cornell; he has also held national policy roles.

Malliaras said Tennant's industry experience is "invaluable" to CNF, especially considering that many of CNF's users are not academics, but industry experts and scientists from private companies.

"He can talk to industry much better than academics can," Malliaras said.

In charge of keeping CNF's equipment up to date, Tennant says he's hoping that in coming years, he will help the facility make wise capital investments to keep up with science.

One area in which he'd like to see growth is nanoimprint lithography, an advanced type of lithography in which a patterned hard substrate can be replicated to a very small scale in a manner similar to a rubber stamp.

"I think we ought to be involved in training the world on how to do this," Tennant said.