Month: May 2011

TEM was down yesterday. Mingje and I did trouble shooting on the phone, but could solve the problem. Today I checked more components. One board may be damaged. An on-site service request was placed on the phone. Waiting for service engineer to call me back.

An ion mill problem was reported yesterday. This problem was found to be associated with the low gun which was used heavily recently. I have contacted the vendor and received a quote today. A service request has been submitted today. Waiting for approval now. The instument could be down for two weeks or longer because of PO and gun service.

It was reported that the double tilt specimen holder did not work. I found that the cable was damaged by our user. User should hold the metal part to disconnect the cable from the holder. User should never pull the cable to disconnect it. We will try to fix the cable, or order a new cable.
The condenser aperture is adjusted. It works well now.
TEM EDS is conditioned and calibrated. It work well now. I may want to condition it again in near future. Please check the comments in the instrument status.
Thanks

XL-30 SEM was shut down on Wed. It is fixed today. Please keep the room door closed, otherwsie, the room temperature could be too high for the instrument.

FEI Quanta 3D ion source was depleted on last Friday. FEI engineer will be on campus to install a new source and do all necessary alignment. All reservations on Monday will be cancelled. Please reschedule your sessions. Thanks