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Welcome to the Mechanical Engineering Department Scanning Probe Microscope (SPM) Web page

A Veeco Instruments Dimension 3100 SPM with Nanoscope IV controller is available for use by students and faculty of the Mechanical Engineering Department at Iowa State University. Interested students and faculty must undergo a training program before they can use the instrument. More information on general rules of instrument use and the training program are given below .

Training Program for the Dimension 3100 SPM

•  Training will be performed by students from Sundararajan’s or Shrotriya’s research group. Training will be performed ONCE a semester.  Date and time of upcomming training sessions will be posted here.
• A training program will typically consist of two sessions of about 2 hours each. The first session will cover instruction and the second session will consist of a supervised practice session on a standard sample. The costs associated with the training sessions for use of the instrument will be $27/hour per person. At the time of training, users must provide an account number to which the training fees will be charged.
• The funds generated via training session costs will be put into an instrument maintenance/improvement fund to help offset future hardware upgrades of the instrument and acquisition of necessary accessory items for the instrument.

General rules of AFM use:

1. Only authorized personnel will be allowed to use the AFM. Interested users can become authorized upon successful completion of a training program.
2. Users must use the on-line scheduler to schedule their work sessions on the instrument.
• Users should not work past their scheduled time slot.
• If you are unable to make a scheduled time slot, cancel your reservation as soon as possible.
3. Users must provide their own probes. Probes are consumables and are available from several vendors including:
   Mikromasch: www.spmtips.com (Probe models typically used for tapping modes)
   Digital Instruments: www.veecoprobes.com (Probe models typically used for contact and tapping modes)
4. It is recommended that users carry their sample(s) with them after their experiment to avoid contamination or loss of sample. We will not be responsible for loss/damage to you.
r sample(s).
5. Users must COMPLETELY fill in the logbook available near the instrument before and after every instrument session. Failure to do so will result in loss of user privileges.
6. Instrument manuals, tweezers and other accessory items must remain at the instrument area at all times.
7. Please pay attention to operating guidelines posted above the instrument as well as to those mentioned during the training program. You can also refer to the instrument manuals. Do not touch or adjust any controls or settings that were not explained to you during training. In order to minimize conflict with other users, no modifications to the instruments of any nature will be allowed. Users/affiliated party shall be responsible for any damages that occur to the instrument as a result of their use. No Exceptions.
8. In additions to filling out the logbook, please immediately report ANY malfunctioning of the instrument to any of the following individuals: Dr. Sundararajan (Dr. S): 294-1050, Dr. Shrotriya: 294-9719, NTML Group: Kanaga Karuppiah/ Sharath Chandrasekaran/ Yilei Zhang: 294-0856
9. Users must bring their own CD-RWs or ZIP-100 disks to backup their data files. The computer capture directory will be periodically cleaned out - We will not be responsible for lost files!!
10. Users must clean-up the work areas after they are done. Replace tweezers, etc. to their holders.
11. Leave the equipment in the appropriate state for the next user (as instructed in the training booklet)

• Failure to comply with any of the above rules may result in loss of user privileges.
• Dr. Sundarajan/ Dr. Shrotriya reserve the right to modify the rules if necessary and to deny or revoke user privileges.

Justification of user rate for instrument use of Dimension 3100 system

The Dimension 3100 SPM was purchased in November 2003 for a cost of $198,000. An estimated lifetime of the instrument is about 10 years. It is estimated that instrument use will be about 750 hours/year (10 hours per week for three 15-week semesters). The cost of samples associated with instrument calibration etc, is approximately $350/year. The use of the machine can be figured to cost about $26.9/hour, hence the rate charged for users is $27/hour.