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Department of Physics

The Cavendish Laboratory
 

The Advanced Materials Characterisation Suite is a user facility for staff and students in the Cavendish Laboratory and other University of Cambridge departments. It is also open to users from other higher-education institutions and industrial partners.

The Suite is based in the Maxwell Centre, and has the following state-of-the-art instruments for the characterisation of a wide range of material properties.

University of Cambridge members can check the current status of the equipment, and the booking status of the various instruments .

Bookings

Booking for each instrument can only be made by registered users. Bookings are managed using an online calendar, access to which is given following user training. Please observe the following rules when making bookings.

  1. Bookings can be made up to two weeks in advance. Any bookings made further in advance will be cancelled without notice.
  2. Only make bookings when samples are ready – no speculative bookings please.
  3. Please include both the experimenter's name (CRSid) and that of the PI/group when making the booking on the calendar.
  4. Bookings can only be made for a maximum of two consecutive days per person (including collaborators).
  5. Each session begins at 10.00am, and ends at 10.00am the following day. Measurements that are still running at the end of the session may be terminated by the next user.
  6. TeamViewer should only be used to monitor your experiment and only during your own booking time. Data should be collected in person at the end of the experiment. We have had incidents of people losing work through a result of others logging in remotely.
  7. Mondays will be reserved for emergency measurements or maintenance operations, and can only be booked from 12 noon on the previous Friday.

Training and Access

Prior to instrument-specific training, new users are required to register as visitors to either the Department of Physics or the Maxwell Centre, and complete the relevant health and safety training. New users should complete the user registration form and contact to schedule a training session.

For further information on the technical specification, user training and access, bookings, and usage charges, please contact .

Publications and User Reporting

All users of the Advanced Materials Characterisation Suite are required to report their research results and publication activities. This information will be collected and compiled. Please kindly pass on the information by .

Recent publications resulting from data collected using the equipment in the Advanced Materials Characterisation Suite can be found here.

Resources

Useful technical literature of the instruments and notes on measurement techniques can be found here.