About Nano Lab

How we work

Most of our work, especially electron microscopy, runs at UC San Diego's Nano3 facility. We usually run the instruments ourselves. For some techniques we work with trusted specialists at partner laboratories, chosen for the capability the job needs.

We don't own the instruments. That keeps our overhead and prices low, keeps us flexible about which instrument fits your sample, and means there is no minimum job size. One sample is a real job.

We are a small team, and we use that to help you get answers quickly, efficiently, and affordably. Your email goes to a PhD scientist who scopes the work with you, reviews the data, and can talk through the results, with no account managers or handoffs in between.

Caleb Christianson, PhD

Founder

Caleb earned his PhD in NanoEngineering at UC San Diego as an NSF Graduate Research Fellow, working on actuators and sensors for bioinspired soft robots. His research has also included carbon nanotube and graphene films for infrared detectors, biosensors, and drug-delivery microparticles, along with internships at Cornell's NanoScale Facility and NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory.

He then spent 6.5 years in medical device engineering at a continuous glucose monitor company, most recently leading failure mode analysis. He has 17 years of experience in electron microscopy.

Ashley Pham, BS

Microscopy and Materials Analyst

Ashley runs SEM, EDS, FIB, XPS, XRD, and TEM for Nano Lab at UC San Diego's Nano3 facility, along with optical and stylus profilometry and ellipsometry. She has trained more than 250 users on microscopy instruments and holds a BS in Human Biology from UC San Diego.

Ben Sachs, MS

Engineer

Ben's background is in nanotechnology and novel electronic devices, with hands-on fabrication and characterization experience including SEM, FIB, AFM, and TEM. He holds a BS in Electrical Engineering from UC San Diego and an MS in materials science.

Accreditation

Nano Lab is not ISO 17025 accredited and does not perform testing under GLP or GMP. Our work is built for R&D, failure analysis, and engineering questions, where speed, flexibility, and direct access to the scientist matter most. When a project needs more formality, we can agree on a documented test procedure with you before work begins.

Confidentiality

We keep client samples, data, and identities confidential, and we never publish them without written permission.

Reports

Every job comes with the data and a PDF report of what was observed and measured. Interpretation of the results is available as a separately quoted add-on.