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Materials Analysis Research Laboratory - News |
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Equipment at MARL is installed and upgraded on a ongoing basis. Instruments occasionally have to be taken out of service for maintenance or repair. This page is intended to keep users informed of news.
Top items
MARL now part of MSE - MARL engaged in a strategic planning exercise during late 2006 and early 2007. One consensus to come from that exercise is that MARL is truly a college-wide and campus-wide resource. A long-term goal is to assume such a position within the university. In the short term, MARL has realigned with the Materials Science and Engineering department.
MARL had aligned itself with the Civil Engineering department back in the 1980s when Professor Turgut Demirel had a very active program in materials characterization. The MSE program was considerably smaller then. Over the years, MSE has grown to be a strong program and the materials emphasis within CCEE has diminished with changes of faculty. A significant portion of MARL's work comes through the MSE department and the two organizations have quite similar visions for materials characterization. Therefore, it seemed appropriate to align with MSE at this time. Presumably it will offer opportunities to work more closely with those faculty who have already been using MARL's capabilities.
There should be little evidence of this change on most MARL users. Most policies and procedures will remain the same. No instruments will be relocated in the near future. MARL staff will become familiar with MSE equipment and will start providing support on that equipment, as time permits. The most obvious change is that MARL has gotten involved in bringing a Bruker D8 diffractometer on-line (see below).
The laboratory is kept open according to the regular university schedule. Individual staff may be absent on any given day. Major absences are recorded on a staff schedule. Staff may be out of the office for shorter periods without record. It is advisable that users call ahead to make sure that the staffer that they seek is in the lab and not occupied with another client. Click here for contact information.
Bruker D8 diffractometer coming on-line - Professor Ustundag brought a D8 to campus with him when he came to campus a couple of years ago. MARL has taken the lead in bringing that instrument on-line.
The D8 is one of Bruker's premier XRD instruments. It is equipped with a HiStar GADDS (General Area Detector Diffraction System) 2-D detector. Its features include sensitivity, flexibility, and speed. While it offers standard XRD capabilities, it is best suited to special applications such as texture analysis and measurement of residual stresses.
The instrument has been installed and partially aligned. Currently (9-12-07), we are awaiting refurbishment of the HiStar detector. We roughly estimate that final setup will be completed in early October.
Hitachi hi-resolution sample holder - A specialized holder has been constructed for the Hitachi SEM for collecting high-resolution images at magnifications of more than 15,000x. It helps to eliminate most vibrations than are otherwise evident. Contact Jerry or Warren about its use.
New TA Software available - A new version of Universal Analysis is available for processing thermal analysis data. It allows for more convenient management of graphs including overlaying of curves. The old version, 2.6d, is still available in the utilities folder. The new version must be installed from CD as it is inextricably linked with the analysis software. Contact MARL staff to check-out a copy of the CD.
JEOL/IXRF - no news
Hitachi/Link ISIS - no news.
TA thermal analysis - no news
XRF - no news
XRD - no news
Optical Microscopes/Pixera Camera - no news
IXRF computer upgrade - The computer for the EDS system was upgraded from an Athlon 1200 MHz to an Athlon 2100 MHz. 12/2002
Link Isis hardware upgrade - The EDS detector was switched from Ge to Si(Li). New standards will need to be collected. New spectra must be stored in new job directories separate from spectra collected with the Ge detector. Old job directories will be maintained as long as needed. 8/2002
The computer for the EDS system was upgraded from a AMD K6-500 MHz to an Athlon XP 1800 MHz. PCI imaging hardware and the ISIS interface card were upgraded from three ISA cards to two PCI cards. PCI software was upgraded from version 4 to version 5. 7/2002
Link Isis software upgrade - The ISIS software suite was upgraded to version 3.32. 7/2000
PCI Imaging System - A Quartz PCI image acquisition and archiving system was installed to work with both SEM images on the Hitachi E-SEM and with microscopic and macroscopic images using a DAGE TV camera on the lab's several optical microscopes (stereo, reflected, and transmitted light). Images are recorded in JPEG, TIFF and other formats for interchange with a variety of computer platforms across the campus network. Archiving software is included. Text annotation is available as an image overlay. 2/1996
| Laboratory information: Jerry Amenson | (515) 294-8752 | jamenson@iastate.edu |
| Web page feedback: Warren Straszheim | (515) 294-8187 | wesaia@iastate.edu |
Revised Sep 12 2007 wes