Lab Manager: Jim Connolly. Office: Northrop
Hall Rm. 209A (inside the computer lab).
Phone: (505) 277-9447, FAX: (505) 277-8843, Email: connolly@unm.edu
These X-Ray Diffraction pages are designed to be a resource for current and
potential users of the X-ray powder diffraction laboratory at in the Department
of Earth & Planetary Sciences at the University of New Mexico. They are
eternally under construction. Latest updates 7-Sep-2007.
Lab Status: The Scintag Diffractometer is UP!
!
Status as of 3:00 PM on 12-May-2008: All is operating well
in the lab (except as noted below).
EPSXRD3 (the computer on the west wall of the lab) has suffered a hard disk crash rendering it useless for its appointed tasks of XRD data analysis. A replacement hard drive has arrived, and before the end of the week the system will be rebuilt with Windows XP, Jade 8.5, the latest PDF4 release, the 2008 Release 1 ICSD Database, and Microsoft Office 2003 (along with the other software that was there before the crash. I will not be installing all of the "legacy" versions of Jade that were there before the crash as this would be largely redundant. As time allows, we will reinstall all of the freeware data conversion software and the Rietveld programs (GSAS and FullProf).
Jade 8.5 has been installed, and contains some nice improvements over last year's Jade 8.1 release. The databases have also been upgraded to the ICDD PDF4 Release 2007 and the ICSD "FindIt" Database Release 2008/1. Please note that if you have any custom Search/Match "UserFiles" created for your work, you will need to reconstruct them using the newest version of the ICDD database before they will be fully functional (i.e., allow detailed card data to be displayed, etc.) with the updated databases.
Other past items of note:
Because of recent scheduling conflicts that have arisen, I have
created an "Official" XRD
Laboratory Scheduling Policy to be followed by all users. This policy is
designed to allow users to schedule time on the system and have that policy
be respected by other users. Please read it (by clicking on the link)
and heed what it says. Failure to do so will result in a warning, and continued
failures to do so will result in suspension or termination of laboratory privileges.
The notice in the lab asking that the system be run at full filament current
(35 mA) has been removed. Please return the filament current to idle levels
(10 mA) after using the system if nobody is scheduled to use it after your run.
X-ray tube intensity has dropped very slightly over the past year and a very
small amount of Tungsten contamination of the Cu target can be seen in XRD patterns.
Lab finances are encouraging us to hold off on upgrading the XRD tube until sometime later in the summer. At this point we are shooting for sometime in July.
Lab Changes and Upgrades Completed as of June 26, 2007: Jade
8.0 and ICDD PDF4 Database (2005 version) installed on EPSXRD2 and EPSXRD3.
See below for details.
Recent Upgrades and Additions:
Additional analytical software for XRD has been added to EPSXRD2 and EPSXRD3.
At this point this includes Dennis Eberl's Mudmaster (particle size analysis)
and RockJock (quantitative analysis) spreadsheet programs, and Bob Reynold's
NEWMOD.
The ICSD (Inorganic Crystal Structure Database) has been installed on both
of the analytical systems (EPSXRD2 and EPSXRD3). The ICSD database contains
all of the structural information needed to do structure refinements. The
direct access to this structural data is through a program on the Start Menu
and Desktop named "FINDIT". The database includes some interesting
software for visualizing crystal structures. Though it has limited use without
some supporting software, the license for the database covers all of the EPS
department and XRD Lab users.
The Jade 8 upgrade has been installed on the analytical systems (EPSXRD2
and EPSXRD3) along with the ICSD Database (PDF4+ 2005) indexed to operate
under Jade 8. The ICSD Database has also been linked to be accessible to Jade
8 and indexed by Jade's new pattern calculation software. We have retained
the Jade 7.5 with links to the same ICSD Database, but encourage all users
to move on to Jade 8 for its many improvements. Jade 6.5 installations and
links to the PDF2 (2004) version of the ICDD data have also been retained.
There are many nice functional improvements to the new database and all lab
users are encouraged to use it.
GSAS (latest version circa March, 2007) has been installed on EPSXRD2 and
EPSXRD3 along with the Brian Toby's ExpGUI interface to it. I have also installed
a freeware data conversion program. Also included is Lachlan Cranswick's tutorial
introduction to ExpGUI, and links to the GSAS documentation (such as it is).
For those interested in exploring GSAS outside of the lab, both the FindIT
(ICSD database), GSAS and conversion program have been installed on ALL of
the workstation computers in the E&PS computer lab located in Room 209
of Northrop Hall. These systems are available to all XRD Lab users.
Upgrades and additons on the way:
The installation of the CrysFire system for doing unit cell calculations
has been delayed, but should still happen before September, 2007.
We plan to add a few more free packages including PowderX (for data visualization
and analysis) and a number of file format converters (useful for obtaining
data files for the other programs). I will also be looking for other useful
free software at the annual Denver X-Ray Conference during the first week
of August.
Please check back here (http://epswww.unm.edu/xrd) for status updates.
Yahoo Calendar: In the interest of convenience to our all-over-campus
users, we are now using an onlne calendar for scheduling lab time. All current
users should have received information about how to log in and access the calendar
for "epsxrdlab" located Yahoo calendars at http://calendar.yahoo.com.
See or Email to Jim Connolly (connolly@unm.edu)
if you need the access password. The "read-only" version at http://calendar.yahoo.com/epsxrdlab
may be consulted to see what times are available without logging in. There are
shortcuts on the desktop of all lab computers to access the calendar. We also
have an online Adobe Acrobat document
which explains in some detail how to effectively use the calendar. This
online calendar is the authoritative calendar for lab scheduling.
The paper calendar in the lab is for reference only.
As always, users are asked to send Email feedback to the Lab Manager with any comments.
Please direct comments and suggestions about these pages and
the X-Ray Diffraction Laboratory to Jim
Connolly, Lab Manager.
help documents for our lab, theory, practice, safety and vendors).
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