IMRI facility blog

Neither of the FEI engineers were available today. The engineer is suppose to be available tomorrow to assess the pole piece. However, the imaging capability of the Magellan still appears to be normal and users may use the Magellan and quickloader in the mean time.

The pole piece was touched by a user’s sample today. Imaging capability appears to be normal but the damage needs to be assessed by an FEI engineer. Users can not use the Magellan until after this assessment. The engineer will be here Monday.

The Smartlab is having a error message related to its X-ray generator this morning.

Working on troubleshooting…..

The qucikloader had a problem (jammed).

Quanta 3D SEM/FIB is working. However, Quanta 3D ion beam image resolution is not as good as before. FEI engineer is trouble shooting to find the problem related part. This issue should not prevent users from using it. Please read comment for more updates.

Recent events: a leakage was found from Pt GIS.  A new Pt GIS is installed today. The leakage problem is solved.  A full FIB alignment was done last week.

The Smartlab is operational now. The issue is solved.

The XG control warning alarm was shown up. X-ray tube may need to be replaced.  Working on it…

The water chiller stopped working this morning. Checking the problem with vendor.

I have asked FEI engineer to improve the image resolution at low kV (1kV). FEI engineer may reserve the instrument from time to time. Alignment was done today and an aperture was changed. I will test it later.

Quanta 3D SEM is working well. FIB may have an issue with patterning under some conditions because the scanning part is not fully functional.

We have changed the LMIS and FIB apertures and done an alignment. We are waiting for the scanning parts which may arrive on next Monday.