Training & becoming an authorized user:

Contact: Dr. Donggao Zhao - Phone: 512-471-1177
 

SEM / ESEM / XRD

Training for these instruments is conducted on an informal basis. If you need these types of data, it's a good idea to start hanging out in the lab with guys who have research interests similar to yours. Instructions (the cookbook approach) reside in the lab (perhaps, someday, to be posted here....). Study these instructions and once you're comfortable with the locations of the various panel controls and what they're for check with Kitty. She can provide further details on any aspects of machine operation that seem unclear, plus consult on the particular machine settings that might be appropriate to your project. When you're ready, schedule some time and Kitty sits there and watches while you take the machine through startup to shutdown. She may grill you with questions like " what do you do if this red light is blinking?" If you're comfortable with the machine, and Kitty is convinced of that, you get your pilot's license and you become an authorized user. As an authorized user it's partly your job to help out with teaching new guys who want to learn.

Microprobe

The probe and the SEM have many systems in common. There are two crucial differences, though, that make learning probe operation a much bigger deal. First, the probe is automated to a far greater degree, making it necessary to involve the probe computer to some extent even in simple operations like moving your sample in and out of focus. Second, probe data are quantitative and there's a lot of computational and statistical rigmarole that comes into play between detection and data. Soooo....to become an authorized probe user you must take GEO 390R. Analytical Techniques: Electron-beam Analysis. Taught in the Fall Semester, enrollment is limited, so if probe data are important for your thesis or dissertation, don't wait to sign up. On the other hand, if your project is not likely to get underway within a semester of your finishing the course, it might be wiser to wait. It's awkward to sit down at the probe and get data if it's been a while since you used the instrument. In general, probe users who've finished the course get a sort of limited license, allowing them to schedule instrument use during normal working hours. Later, when Kitty decides you've logged considerable machine time with no problems, you get a full license and you can probe nights, weekends, whenever.