Fees Overview and Policies

This page summarizes the fee ranges and policies charged to internal and external users. All current and future rates can be found at https://nemo.nano.upenn.edu/fee_schedule and supersede any stated rates on this page. Internal users are students, post-docs, staff, faculty or anyone employed by the University of Pennsylvania — all others are external users. External users are defined as academic, government or industry/corporate:

• External Academic users belong to any credited post-secondary academic degree-offering institution not managed by the University of Pennsylvania.
• Government users belong to the public sector which are government ran entities such as a Department of Energy (DOE) research lab or similar.
• Industry/Corporate users belong to private sector organizations that include small companies (less than 50 full-time employees) or large companies (50 or more full-time employees). Startup employees are not considered government users even if the startup’s partial or whole funding source may be a Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) grant, Small Business Technology Transfer (STTR) grant or any grant issued by any local, state/provincial, federal or foreign government entity.

New Policy Terms effective July 1, 2025: 

• Peak hours are defined as Monday through Friday, 9 am to 7 pm.
• Off-peak hours are defined as Monday through Friday, 7 pm to 9 am, and all-day Saturday and Sunday.
• During peak hours, a $5 minimum charge will apply to tools and lab areas, where applicable, across all three cores. Exceptions include spinners (SPN-XX), metrology (MET-XX), and wet bench sonicators. See https://nemo.nano.upenn.edu/fee_schedule
• Off-Peak Advantages 
  • A nominal 15% discounted rate is in effect for tool and lab area access.
  • Waiver of the $5 minimum charge per tool or lab area login.

Quattrone Nanofabrication Facility

Effective July 1, 2026:

The internal and external academic rate policy caps usage (both door/lab and tool charges) in the cleanroom/soft lithography together to $7500 per semester (July-Dec and Jan-Jun) per user per PI. After this cap has been reached, a user can incur an additional $30k in charges without incurring any cost to their PI. Afterward, the regular academic rate is applied for additional charges that exceed the $37,500 threshold and will be invoiced accordingly.  This cap resets every semester. There is no cap structure for industry/corporate users.

Individual Tool fees are available at: https://nemo.nano.upenn.edu/fee_schedule/

Nanoscale Characterization Facility

Effective July 1, 2026:

The NCF has an annual cap of $14,500, with a $6,000 runway of no billable charges per PI/user pair. Billing will resume once a user reaches $20,500 in total incurred NCF charges. This cap resets each fiscal year on July 1. No caps exist for industry/corporate users.

Individual Tool fees are available at: https://nemo.nano.upenn.edu/fee_schedule/

Scanning Probe Facility

Effective July 1, 2026:

The SLPF will have an annual cap of $4,000, with an $8,000 runway of no billable charges per PI/user pair. Billing will resume once a user reaches $12,000 in total incurred SLPF charges. This cap resets each fiscal year on July 1.  No caps exist for industry/corporate users.

Individual Tool fees are available at: https://nemo.nano.upenn.edu/fee_schedule/