(posted 8/08/08)

Dear EICN users:

As you know, the Electron Imaging Center for Nanomachines (EICN) at CNSI recently finished the installation of two new transmission electron microscopes – the 200kV TF20 and the 300 kV Titan (S)TEM, both from FEI. To assist you in your research involving electron imaging, we have been planning formal training sessions for these two instruments. Recently, we sent out an inquiry about your interest in participating in these training sessions and we want to thank you for your prompt replies to our inquiry.

FEI has insisted on limiting the number of their extensive (four day) technical training to only four people, whom FEI refers to as "superusers." Therefore, we have implemented a two-tier training procedure: in the first step the "superusers" will be trained by an FEI engineer and thereafter these trained experts will provide a highly condensed, application-oriented training to general users. Upon completion of the FEI training, "superusers" will be in charge of training general users for Titan STEM and TF20 at EICN.

FEI has indicated that they will not provide any training resources (video, DVDs, PPT etc) to us. Therefore, we will have to create our own "training courses" and instructions for our general user training. Understandably, this process will take some time. As soon as training courses are created, we'll offer routine training to EICN users. Training will be offered first to the users who have requested training in the order of requests we have received so far. We'll keep you updated.

Please address your training-related inquiries to Dr. Sergey Ryazantsev at sryazant@ucla.edu (phone: 310-453-0748) or other EICN staff.

Thank you for your enthusiasm and understanding.