The carbon coater repairs are completed. If you need any samples coated, please contact Aleister, Josh, or myself.
All equipment status updates.
Michigan Tech and the Materials Science and Engineering (MSE) department seek a postdoctoral scientist to serve as a specialist in the operation and application of an FEI Titan Themis Scanning Transmission Electron Microscope (STEM) and its associated attachments for interdisciplinary users across campus as well as potential users external to campus.
The EBSD detector on the ESEM has been damaged and the phosphor screen will need to be replaced. We are in contact with Oxford and hope to have the repairs completed in the next few weeks. The ESEM is still available for SE/BSE imaging and EDS analysis.
Please remember EBSD is only to be performed by highly-skilled, trained users who have been trained by ACMAL staff to use the EBSD detector. This is a very sensitive process and the detector can easily be damaged. Users with large SEM samples also need to be careful not to hit the detectors. Repairs are costly and result in instrument downtime.
The STEM is back online. The FEI technician was able to come in yesterday and today to complete the alignments.
Dr. Anjana will be contacting anyone who had previously scheduled sessions.
The STEM is currently offline due to an alignment issue. We are working with the service technician from FEI to repair the issue. They will likely need to come for an onsite service visit, which will hopefully be next week.
Once the repairs are complete, Anjana will be contacting anyone who had previously scheduled sessions.
The chiller repairs are completed and the instrument is back online.
The S-TEM will be offline today while the service technician is working on the chiller. The repairs should be completed this afternoon and the instrument available Monday morning. Dr. Anjana will contact you if we need to reschedule your appointment
Please note that the ACMAL reservation limit for the Origin+ Atomic Force Microscope (AFM) has been extended from 4 hours to 6 hours during normal business hours. The updated policy can be found on the reservations page of our website.
Trained users may reserve instruments during normal business hours (8 a.m. – 5 p.m.) Monday through Friday. Reservations outside of normal business hours require special permission.
During working hours, do not exceed a four hour reseservation on instruments except the Origin+ Atomic Force Microscope (AFM). AFM reservations should not exceed 6 hours. Longer reservations are available with permission.
If you have any questions please let me know.
Join us for the first seminar of the Spring Semester at 1 p.m. Friday (Jan. 22) via Zoom (passcode 645507).
Pinaki Mukherjee (MSW) will present ” Recent Advances in ACMAL STEM Facility.” This talk presents an overview of state-of-the-art capabilities of the aberration-corrected scanning transmission electron microscope (ac-STEM) at ACMAL, Michigan Tech.
Mukherjee joined Michigan Tech in January of 2018. He obtained his PhD in Materials Engineering from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. He worked as a post-doctorate researcher at Rutgers University, The State University of New Jersey. He was an affiliate of the National Center for Electron Microscopy, at Lawrence Berkley National Laboratory.
The XPS is operational and is available for use. Please note that the sputter gun, that is used for sputtering and depth profile analysis, is currently not functioning properly and is temporarily unavailable. Email me (at trleftwi@mtu.edu) if you are interested in XPS (or Auger) analysis.
Dr. Timothy Leftwich
Research Assistant Professor
ACMAL Surface Scientist
Material Science and Engineering
trleftwi@mtu.edu