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Waterloo Advanced Technology
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What's NeXT
13 December 2020 - Happy holidays: WATLab will close for the holidays at 4 pm this Friday December 18 and will reopen on January 11. With the vaccines now slowly coming online, all our safety protocols must remain in place in 2021 and at least for the next six months. As we don't want our region to get downgraded to lockdown mode, we caution all our users not to gather or party during the holidays. We take this opportunity to wish everyone a Merry Christmas and Happy New Year, and to thank all our users for following the rules and for keeping WATLab and everyone alive in this challenging time.
14 November 2020 - Circuit-breaker counter-measures: COVID caseloads in the Waterloo region and all surrounding areas have skyrocketed to an unprecedented level. To keep WATLab open and to protect the WATLab user bubble, we ask those users who might have exposed to potentially high-risk activities to delay making machine reservation for two weeks. High-risk activities are defined as gatherings of any kind with any person outside one's immediate day-to-day life bubble. At this point, we must follow this lockdown-like countermeasure, and we should only go outside to do essential things (work, or buy food). If the user has any doubt about his/her COVID-free status, we ask the user to err on the side of caution and to delay machine reservation for two weeks. WATLab has relied on the honour system in the past 20 years and we hope that our users, more than ever, will do the right thing in this difficult time (and not put others at risk). We thank our users for their continued cooperation.
3 October 2020 - Second wave: The Province's case load has risen sharply and the case load for the Region of Waterloo has now reached that of late April. To keep WATLab open, we hope our users will keep up the good work of following the safety protocol. More importantly, we should now maintain basic personal defensive measures that will not only protect ourselves but others as well. These simple measures are: wash hands often, mask up, stay 2 m apart, stay away from people in general, and don't go to non-essential places. We thank our users for their kind cooperation and continued support in this make-or-break time.
1 September 2020 - Steady as she goes: It has now been three weeks since the WATLab reboot. Both the remote OS and in-person certified user service appear to be working well. We are very grateful to our users who honour the "honour system" and have followed the new protocol, for the benefit of everyone in the WATLab domain. The University will start a new term after Labour Day and all schools in the Waterloo region will reopen in the next two weeks or so. This will be the critical test of our resolve of maintaining our discipline in protecting ourselves and everyone in this interesting time in human history. Please let us know if there is any operational improvement that we could do to make life easier.
10 August 2020 - WATLab resuming operation: After 20 weeks of lock-down, we finally have permission to reopen WATLab under strict safety protocols. Ontario has entered a critical period of phase 3 reopening and we must remain vigilant in the next few months. We seek the help of all our users and ask them to take the following Mandatory Safety Protocol to protect themselves and us:
1. Mask up, gloves on, and stay 2 m apart - at all times in WATLab. 2. Avoid high-risk situations two weeks before the machine reservation time: Do not attend any big gathering (with more than 10 people) or party or high risk places. If the user has close contact with a potential carrier (i.e. less than 2 m for more than 15 minutes), then we would ask the user to self-quarantine for 14 days before coming in contact with the WATLab bubble. 3. Download, install, and activate the contact tracing app (COVID Alert) by Health Canada. 5. Upon arrival at WATLab, follow the check-in and check-out procedures, and observe the new safety rules. (Only one user per machine is allowed and so please do not bring anyone else).
As we can only operate under strict restrictions imposed by the Safety Office, this is not business as usual. Any user found in violation of the above will be suspended for one year and the user's entire group will also be suspended for one year. In the past 20 years, WATLab has tried not to create a lot of rules (red tapes), and we have been relying on the honour system. We believe most of our users are responsible individuals, and they will, we hope especially now, do the right thing in this challenging time.
Booking calendars are back up. Please contact Nina for further help or info. Good luck, and happy data mining!
How to become a certified SEM user? Please follow the FAQ link above or here for more details. Please contact Nina to arrange for SEM training and certification.
Why we don't need a lot of sample for SEM analysis? To our users with powder samples, we wish to remind them that one does not really need tons of samples to do SEM. Powders should be uniformly spread over a 1 mm x 1 mm area (in a layer a few microns thick) and attached securely onto the carbon tape. We definitely do not need powders spreading over an area larger than 1 mm x 1 mm and/or in a layer thicker than 10 microns. Here, we should remember: LESS is MORE, b/c: (a) A finely focussed electron beam (<10 nm dia.) hitting any sample (especially the "gassy" ones) at high energy will cause local heating/interaction that leads to rapid gas desorption, which will cause the filament (sitting at the EHT voltage) to arc (the filament will not survive above 5x10-9 mB). Field-emission filament will not be able to handle a lot of arcings like that, which will shorten its lifetime significantly. So, the less samples that one uses, the more stable is the machine. (b) Powder samples that are too thick (or not securely attached to the carbon tape) will also lead to partial charging. This is b/c the electron beam typically penetrates a few microns, creating secondary electrons that are finding their way to the carbon tape. If the sample is too thick, these secondary electrons stay inside the bulk and the sample will charge up, leading to bad images. (c) More samples in the chamber will lead to a poorer vacuum, and it will take a longer time to pump the system down to the acceptable operating vacuum condition. Less gas in the chamber and less gas desorption from the sample (as induced by the high-energy electron impact) will also improve image quality.
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TOOLSET & SERVICE
We offer pay-per-use service for both academic and industrial users at competitive rates, with our expert operators providing sample characterization measurement (and analysis). For a selected number of tools (e.g. SEM), we also provide training to allow the users to access the tools through a self-serve booking system. To submit samples for analysis, please fill in Form A above, and contact the respective technical specialists. For all other enquiries and guided lab tours, please contact manager . |
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KNOWLEDGE BASE Inside look at LEO chamber | CORE RESEARCH aT WATLAB Research news to come... |
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14 January 2021 -
Essential work/research continues at WATLab during second SOE 
Established
with funding support from Canada Foundation for Innovation and the
Province of Ontario in 1999, WATLab is the first multidisciplinary
materials research centre in Canada's Technology Triangle. WATLab
offers a complete toolset for advanced materials research and
emerging technology development. Most of our instrument systems are
state-of-the-art and some are unique in Canada, and they include:
OUTREACH