Planning and Design of Instrument Facilities

[John Donovan]

This board is for discussion of what particular building and room design considerations are helpful or necessary for optimum instrument performance, including floor vibration, EMI, temperature control and dust mitigation.

Please feel free to discuss vendor laboratory environmental specifications and performance and/or your own laboratory room issues (I'm sure we all have a number of stories to tell!).

[Anette von der Handt]

Hi,
Considering that I instigated this topic I finally should post something here.

I am in the lucky position that my department will move into a different building in about 2.5 years (so they say). As lovely as the current building is, it is the second oldest on campus and not really ideal to hold laboratories. The new building will be another old one on campus but the interior will be entirely gutted and re-built. We are currently in the second stage after having had one initial meeting to roughly discuss the lay-out and recently also had to submit some initial room specs.

I hope to get some more input and ideas on this board from people who either went through this process or have to live with a bad room design.

We have currently a JEOL-JXA-8900 but are starting proposal writing for a new probe that may or may not be a field emission microprobe so I would like to have a room that allows for the optimum instrument performance of a new probe.

I will have five rooms connected with each other: (1) Microprobe room (2) Pump/utilities room (3) sample prep room (4) computational room (5) my office. I requested the room specs from JEOL and Cameca for their respective latest FE-EPMA models (8530F, SXFiveFE) and also talked to a few people (John Donovan in particular and Mike J). John specifically also mentioned that the vendor specs are more minimum specs but not necessarily guarantee optimum performance (what I obviously want).

This is what I got so far, cobbled together from the sources mentioned above. I am not sure how important all of them are. Any comments are very welcome.

Thanks!

General:
Lab placement in the building: Basement, away from the elevator, away from the loading dock
No power lines over the machine
No water lines / sprinkler systems directly over the machine
Isolated and insulated re-bars in foundation to avoid ground loops


Microscope room conditions

Temperature
21 ± 2 degrees C / 70 ±  degrees F
Stability: ±0.5ºC / hour
Positive air pressure

Humidity
less than 60%, fluctuation <10%/hour

Stray magnetic fields (whichever is less)
Less than 0.03 uT (0.3 mGauss) [Note: DC fields must change less than 0.3 mGauss]
or
Measured in an horizontal direction: Less than 3mG peak to peak ( 1 mG rms ) for mains power frequency ( 50 or 60 Hz ) and its harmonics, and less than 0.1 mG peak to peak (0.035 mG rms ) for all other frequencies. Measurements done with a spectrum analyzer (1 mG = 10-7 T)

Floor Vibration (whichever is less)
Less than 1 micron P-P
or
Less than 5.10-5 g peak to peak ( 1.8.10-5 g rms ) or 5.10-4 m/s2 peak to peak (1.8.10-4 m/s2 rms ), for all spectral components, measured with a spectrum analyzer. Displacement less than 3 μm peak to peak for all frequencies ≤ 2 Hz

Acoustic Noise
Less than 65dBf (un-weighted)
Pump room: Foam insulation noise barrier between pump room and microscope room


Further microprobe room specifications

Minimum Doorway Dimensions
900mm (W) x 2000mm (H); 35.5" (W) x 79" (H)

Electricity
Single-phase, 60 Hz, 208 VAC, + 10%. , 6KVA maximum load. Please provide a NEMA 6L-30R receptacle/plug or a disconnect box including an emergency shutdown switch.

Stability:
± 5% long term voltage stability (>5 sec)
Δ < 8% of nominal voltage, 5 s to 5 ms duration
Δ < 25% of nominal voltage, 1 μs to 800 μs duration
Frequency Stability: 60 Hz, ±5%
Distortion: < 5% THD voltage waveform

Please provide an NEC isolated ground with less than 3 ohms impedance. This ground should not be shared by other equipment, or bonded to the conduit or outlet box.

Other outlets:
Multiple single phase, 60 Hz, 117 VAC, 20A.
Three phase, 60 Hz, 117 VAC,

Anticipated plug load for scientific equipment
18A for electron microprobe

[jon_wade]

This topic should be renamed "Most inappropriate place to shove a probe!"*

We have just purchased a new FE probe, but the room its being shoe horned in has....

the main power line running over the top
a compactor behind,
a lift shaft to the right
a rock crusher two doors down
and for good measure,  pumps in the room.

It is in the basement though, with no natural light and the instrument will, at a push just about fit (provided the carbon coater can be pushed against the far wall).  As you can imagine, I'm hoping that the room fails the manufacturers minimum specs!


* re-reading my title change, maybe it shouldn't 

[Probeman]

We have just purchased a new FE probe, but the room its being shoe horned in has....

It is in the basement though, with no natural light and the instrument will, at a push just about fit (provided the carbon coater can be pushed against the far wall).  As you can imagine, I'm hoping that the room fails the manufacturers minimum specs!

If you absolutely must install a new instrument in an old room, well you are just "stuck". 

Here's my 2 cents: the manufacturers minimum room specs are a bit disingenuous- why?  Because instrument vendors hate to lose a sale just because the room doesn't meet minimum "specs". Mind you- these room specs really are "minimum". That is, they are the worst possible room conditions for which the vendors think they just might be able to get the instrument to pass its own performance specs, kinda, sorta, on a good day!

When designing  a new room for a new instrument, one has some possibilities to *further* improve the new instrument performance by improving the room specs beyond the "minimum" performance. For EPMA, the critical parameter is of course, room temperature control. 

When we first met with the architects to discuss the room performance specs for the various instruments in our Lokey Lab construction project, they said: "Just give us the "cut sheets".  What does this "cut sheets" mean? It means the published specs from the instrument vendors... however I said, "nope we are *not* going to use the vendor specs. We're going to use different specs- in fact, much better specs."

The upshot of it all is we now have fabulous building performance, e.g., +/- 0.2 degrees C, *all the darn time*.      See here for more details:

http://probesoftware.com/smf/index.php?topic=332.0

[Probeman]

Here are the acoustic panels we use in our lab:

Subject to compliance with Project requirements, provide products of the following: Wall Technology, Inc., Ladysmith. WI. Manufacturer’s representative is Jerald Schwarz, Schwarz & Associates, Renton, WA, (206) 218-3489, Jerald@div-9.com.
2.2 MATERIALS

A. Back-Mounted Wall Panels AWP-1 and Ceiling Panels ACP-5 & ACP-6: The core construction is a dimensionally stable 6-7 PCF glass fiberboard laminated with a 1/16” 16-20 pcf molded glass fiber, all covered with a specially formulated fiberglass mat. Square edges are protected with resin hardening. The acoustically transparent finish completely covers the face and exposed edges. Wall Technology “Foundations”.

See attached pdf below.

This stuff is amazingly good at sound absorption. Much, much better than foam rubber.

[Richard Walshaw]

Hi Anette and John

Thanks for posting this info. We are starting to go through all this with architects at the moment and I'm finding your comments useful.
I agree completely with John's philosophy of not settling for the basic manufacturer room specs. You have a once in a lifetime chance to get your dream lab, you must aim high.

John - do you have measurements for vibration and EMI taken in the centre of your probe room?

Regards

Richard

[Probeman]

I agree completely with John's philosophy of not settling for the basic manufacturer room specs. You have a once in a lifetime chance to get your dream lab, you must aim high.

John - do you have measurements for vibration and EMI taken in the centre of your probe room?

Hi Richard,
I don't have the info specifically for my EPMA lab, but the entire facility has been measured for vibration at something around 4 to 8 times better than NIST-A. The vibration survey file attached below mentions "location 3" because we didn't have room numbers in the building yet and I can't remember what location 3 was!  By the way, NIST-A is the "gold standard" for nano-tech characterization (TEM, STEM, etc).

Attached below are some files that you should also find helpful.  I also attached some files regarding separate "grounding" for the labs. This is to provide a "quiet" electrical reference ground for each instrument.

All this said, I'm sure you realize that single most important room performance specification for an EPMA lab is temperature stability.

Our temperature spec in our lab was +/- 0.25 C and we routinely monitor this in our lab and it is always +/- 0.1 C degrees. Yes, this is crazy good, but I told our mechanical engineer that I knew he wouldn't be able to reach +/- 0.25 C and he took it as a personal challenge to prove me wrong, and boy, am I happy that he did!   

Remember, if the room temperature is comfortable for humans, it really doesn't matter what the temperature is, just so long as it is stable.
john

[Richard Walshaw]

Hi

Me again - I'm expecting architects will soon ask me to justify the +/- 0.2 degC room temp control i've requested for our new EPMA room.
Does anyone have or know of data that shows machine stability is superior at this spec compared with the +/- 1degC given on the JEOL room spec sheet?

Richard

[John Donovan]

Hi

Me again - I'm expecting architects will soon ask me to justify the +/- 0.2 degC room temp control i've requested for our new EPMA room.
Does anyone have or know of data that shows machine stability is superior at this spec compared with the +/- 1degC given on the JEOL room spec sheet?

Richard

Hi Richard,
Temperature stability is definitely essential for reproducible EPMA work.  Here are some measurements I made in my lab:

http://probesoftware.com/smf/index.php?topic=332.msg1741#msg1741

Prior to this, we had a strong diurnal signal in the x-ray standard intensities.

Ask them why they can't do an HVAC job as well as a bunch of dumb yanks!     

[Richard Walshaw]

Thanks John

Do you have any old data describing your diurnal cycle for comparison?
I'll be sure to throw down that gauntlet as you suggest - I'm sure the engineers would love to take the bait - sadly the project is already way over budget. I don't want to move on this particular issue but I'll need to produce some numbers.

R

[Probeman]

Do you have any old data describing your diurnal cycle for comparison?
I'll be sure to throw down that gauntlet as you suggest - I'm sure the engineers would love to take the bait - sadly the project is already way over budget. I don't want to move on this particular issue but I'll need to produce some numbers.

Hi Richard,
I couldn't be sure that the intensity drift would solely be due to temperature drift, but I will simply say, that things have definitely improved stability wise in our new lab.  But you can do the experiment yourself.  Run the same test I did by acquiring the same standards for a few days every 6 hours or so (in a PFE run) and see if you can get the same stability I showed in the link above.

That said, I only asked for 0.25 C stability, but I told the engineer he couldn't do it, so it became a point of personal pride with him to prove me wrong- and man, am I glad he did!  We are around 0.1 to 0.2 C stable all year long in the lab.

By the way, he used off the shelf commerical re-heat units from Siemens but tweaked their firmware somewhat. The engineer was David Knighton and his email address is:  dknighton@bhengineers.com  if they would like to contact him.
john

[Anette von der Handt]

Could you give some details on the Siemens re-heater unit (like if it is a specific model)?

Thanks!

[Probeman]

Could you give some details on the Siemens re-heater unit (like if it is a specific model)?

Thanks!

Our mechanical engineer on the project responds:

The basic design is a Variable Air Volume (VAV) Terminal unit reheat system using hot water for reheat.   I specified the Siemens "Lab Room Controller" that tracks and coordinates the delivery of supply and exhaust airflow measured in these other Terminal Units to maintain the desired pressure relationship, as well as maintain room temperature control.  There's lots of information on this Siemens system as well as other manufacturers of similar on the web.  There's no specific model number but Siemens Laboratory Control will get them there.

His email is: DKnighton@bhegroupinc.com if you need more info.
john

[Anette von der Handt]

Hi,

I am in another round with the architects and thought I share some (sometimes more, sometimes less) valuable literature that I found around designing electron microscopy laboratories.

Best,
Anette


Alderson, R.H., 1975, Design of the electron microscope laboratory. In: Practical Methods in Electron Microscopy 4. American Elsevier. pp. 130.

Muller, D.A., Kirkland, E.J., Thomas, M.G., Grazul, J.L., Fitting, L. and Weyland, M., 2006. Room design for high-performance electron microscopy. Ultramicroscopy, 106(11), pp.1033-1040.

O'Keefe, M.A., Turner, J.H., Hetherington, C.J., Cullis, A.G., Carragher, B., Jenkins, R., Milgrim, J., Milligan, R.A., Potter, C.S., Allard, L.F. and Blom, D.A., 2004. Laboratory design for high-performance electron microscopy. Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory.

Jones, L. and Nellist, P.D., 2013. Identifying and correcting scan noise and drift in the scanning transmission electron microscope. Microscopy and Microanalysis, 19(04), pp.1050-1060.

Marcelo Gaudenzi de Faria, Yassine Haddab, Yann Le Gorrec, and Philippe Lutz (2015): Influence of mechanical noise inside a scanning electron microscope. Review of Scientific Instruments, 86 (4). doi 10.1063/1.4917557.

MacLeod, B.P., Hoffman, J.E., Burke, S.A. and Bonn, D.A., 2016. Acoustic buffeting by infrasound in a low vibration facility. Review of Scientific Instruments, 87(9), p.093901.

de Faria, M.G., Haddab, Y., Le Gorrec, Y. and Lutz, P., 2015. Influence of mechanical noise inside a scanning electron microscope. Review of Scientific Instruments, 86(4), p.045105.

Iwaya, K., Shimizu, R., Teramura, A., Sasaki, S., Itagaki, T. and Hitosugi, T., 2012. Design of an effective vibration isolation system for measurements sensitive to low-frequency vibrations. Journal of Vacuum Science & Technology A: Vacuum, Surfaces, and Films, 30(6), p.063201.

Xin, Y., Kynoch, J., Han, K., Liang, Z., Lee, P.J., Larbalestier, D.C., Su, Y.F., Nagahata, K., Aoki, T. and Longo, P., 2013. Facility implementation and comparative performance evaluation of probe-corrected TEM/STEM with Schottky and cold field emission illumination. Microscopy and Microanalysis, 19(02), pp.487-495.


Some information on anti-static flooring
https://www.staticworx.com/articles/article-compliance-mistakes-selecting-esd-tile.php
http://www.flooringtech.com.au/unit13_esd_floors/content/lesson1_static_electricity_in_floors.htm

[Mike Matthews]

This is all really useful stuff. We're in the process of scoping some new labs, and I'm keen to lay down some of this information to justify my requirements. The project manager has already said the 0.1 degree variation limit is impossible, so I can now challenge him on this - thanks Jon. I've already had to point out several times that putting the electron microscopes next to the induction furnaces isn't going to work, or that putting them next to the high speed load frames was any better.
I do have a question for everyone though: If you had a completely blank canvas what would your ideal room layout be, say for a probe, a couple is SEM's (including FEG), and a dual beam, plus sample prep facilities. I'm already assuming the pumps, gas supplies and UPS's will go in a separate service corridor- with active cooling and sound proofing.

Mike