 The Illinois Materials Research Laboratory (MRL) is home to several large-scale research programs, including a NSF-funded Materials Research Science and Engineering Center, the Illinois Quantum Information Science and Technology center, the BP-supported International Centre for Advanced Materials, several large DOE-funded efforts, as well as a number of other research activities.The MRL fosters interdisciplinary research at the forefront of materials science by bringing together world-class faculty and students in condensed matter physics, materials chemistry, and materials science in a highly collaborative research environment.The MRL also has as a core mission to provide characterization tools for materials research, and to meet this mission, the MRL facilities contain one of the most advanced collection of materials characterization tools at a university.