User Information and Facility Policies

The UTA Characterization Center for Materials and Biology (C²MB) is a user facility that is available to faculty, students and researchers from UTA, other institutions and industry. All UTA researchers who need to use instruments residing within C²MB for their research needs are welcome to do so. Usage of the facility however, has to comply with its policies that are outlined below. These policies are in place to warrant the smooth operation of the facility and prevent equipment damage and injuries. A nominal charge will be assessed for the use of each instrument to partly cover the operating costs. The following outlines how a typical user should proceed in order to use instruments residing within the C²MB.

Initial Contact

A potential user should first contact Dr. Yaodong Yang to discuss his/her characterization needs and help choose the appropriate instrument(s).

Contact information for:

Dr. Yaodong Yang
University of Texas at Arlington
104I ELB, Box 19031
Arlington TX 76019
Phone: 817.272.7693
Email: yaodong.yang@uta.edu

Guidelines For New Facility Users

1. Find out exactly what you want to know from your samples.
2. Select the instrument(s) that is (are) most suitable to give you the information you are looking for. If you do not know which instrument you should use, email Dr. Yang with the answer to the first question above. He can help you choose the appropriate instrument(s).
3. Prepare your samples. If you don’t know how, look up at the appropriate literature first and then contact Dr. Yang.
4. Obtain a copy of the C²MB Registration Form from Dr. Yang. The User Information and Advisor Information section in the form must be filled out and signed. The instrument(s) that you wish to use should be checked. Please mention previous experience on relevant instruments that you possibly have. Return the completed form to Dr. Yang prior to using the facility.

In addition to the Registration Form, users outside UTA are requested to furnish a purchase order to which the analysis cost can be charged. Purchase orders should be made out to "UTA Characterization Center for Materials and Biology" and emailed to C²MB.

Training

Please note that there is an Authorized User List for each instrument. Only the users with their names listed on the Authorized User List are allowed to operate the particular instrument. Users who already have expertise and experience in operating particular instruments, they need to be checked out before becoming authorized users.

New users who don’t have operation experience are suggested to attend sessions with authorized users to gain some background and knowledge of the relevant instrumentation prior to requesting training from C²MB staff members. Thus, attending sessions with other fellow students will save significant staff time and reduce training cost.

A minimum of 5 hours are required for basic TEM and HR-TEM training.

User Fees

Users are charged a nominal amount for use of the facility equipment to offset the operation and maintenance costs. The instruments are recharged as follows:

[1] Billing for UTA users will be conducted every three months (Sept-November; December-February; March-May & June-August). The hourly rate will be used for the charge. If the total hourly charge for Hitachi S-3000N SEM, Hitachi S-5000 HRSEM and Hitachi S-4800 HRSEM exceeds the cap amount ($1500), then the cap amount will be charged for SEM.

[2] Because of the fragility and high cost of the tips, training is only available to the users who have their own tips. For users who do not have their own tips and need to use the tips provided by the facility, the testing work will be performed by an operator from the facility, and the users need to pay the operator assistance fee ($40/hour) which is not included in the cap and will be charged separately.

[3] These CCMB staff will conduct operations for this equipment.

Note: Accounting records are always available for inspection by all users.

Service

The facility manager is available to help users with questions and assist in obtaining results, but not to perform the entire characterization and interpretation of the data. This is the user’s responsibility.

For users who do not have the expertise regarding the analytical techniques which they wish to use and have only a small project that needs usage of the facility, operation assistance from the facility staff will be available for performing routine work: X-ray diffractometer operation, SEM imaging and EDS, TEM operation for obtaining bright-field images and selected-area electron diffraction patterns. However, the quality of the results is not guaranteed, since the results are mostly determined by the nature of the specimen itself rather than the operation. In these cases, the users need to pay an operator assistance fee as outlined in the cost structure.

Possibility of Collaboration

In case that you don’t have the expertise and don’t want to invest time and effort into learning and developing such expertise, you may consider to collaborate with other researchers to get your initial results or to complete your project.

Acknowledgment of C²MB

UTA C²MB should be acknowledged in any publications benefiting from using the facility. This is extremely important because publications citing C²MB use are essential when new proposals are being developed for the enhancement or replacement of C²MB instrumentation. A reprint of any publication that contains data obtained using the facility should be supplied to the facility manager.

Access to C²MB

Users are not discouraged to use C²MB after hours and weekends. However, those users must be qualified users and able to work independently. Prior to becoming a qualified user, you must be checked out by the facility manager to ensure that you can operate the relevant instruments appropriately. Qualified users that need to work in C²MB after normal hours need to contact the manager for access to C²MB.

Other Questions

If you have any additional questions please email Dr. Yaodong Yang.

Comments and Suggestions

For questions, comments and suggestions as to how to improve operation of the facility and better serve its users, please contact any member of the Oversight Committee.