November 2015 – IMRI facility blog

Kratos-SUPRA@UCI Update (11/23/2015)

ictran / November 23, 2015November 24, 2015 / Instrument Status

The Kratos-SUPRA has been restored to operational in most common modes (XPS, depth profiling). During this maintenance period, the x-ray gun filament was replaced, the low count rate issues was fixed by cleaning out the restrictors on the cooling water lines. Currently, the pressure of SAC is at ~2E-09 torr. A long bake-out of the system is planned and the schedule will be updated. We recommend to keep your “degassing” samples in the loadlock chamber to pump down until the pressure reaches mid E-07 torr, before transferring to SAC

I am proud to be part of the team at LEXI, IMRI and UCI to work and collaborate with you on this machine and other projects. Please do not hesitate to contact me with any issues, problems and questions related to your experiments and applications using the instrument.

Ich Tran

Quanta 3D FIB down on 11/08/2015 and up on 11/17/2015

Jian-Guo Zheng / November 10, 2015November 19, 2015 / Instrument Status

FIB gun became unstable on last weekend. FEI engineer happened to be on site. He suggests that is necessary to change the gun parts. I have got a quote and an internal approval on Monday. PO request was sent to campus for approval on the same day. Waiting for the parts now…. Meanwhile, I contacted FEI service manager and asked for help for a quick solution to the parts.

CM-20 TEM down on 11/3/2015 and 11/5/2015

Jian-Guo Zheng / November 4, 2015November 7, 2015 / Instrument Status

The high tension can not be applied to 200kV. It keeps dropping at about 140kv. FEI service center is informed. Waiting for response from FEI engineer.

Magellan Problem on 11/2/2015

Jian-Guo Zheng / November 2, 2015 / Instrument Status

Magellan SEM has a problem. UC mode and KV below 5 are currently not available due to no image with VC0. As a possible source of these issues & interference, the FEG module will be changed. Currently, the FEG module is currently on backorder awaiting a more firm ETA. The SEM is still usable. I tested the SEM today. Here is my suggestion. if you want to get good SEM images, you may use following conditions: 10kV, 50pA, TLD and Immersion lens. For EBL, you may use the same condition as you normally use.