Electron Microscopy Center

User Training

Prior Training in Electron Microscopy:

People who wish to operate TEMs must have at least one college-level course in TEM with a lab component or previous TEM experience. The college course can't be one in which TEM was just one of many topics. For researchers who lack academic training and/or practical experience in electron microscopy, we suggest the short courses in TEM at the Hooke College of Applied Sciences, and the hands-on TEM courses at Northwestern University or the University of Chicago or Northern Illinois University.
People who wish to operate SEMs must have at least one college-level course in SEM with a lab component or previous SEM experience or they must read a document which the EMC will provide and achieve a grade of 80% on the test of that material.

Argonne-supplied Training:

Non-Argonne employees:
Researchers who are not employed by Argonne and who will be present in the EMC laboratories for experiments must take the following on-line courses before they start work in the EMC. Researchers will need the user ID and password supplied to them by the Argonne User Facilities On-Line Registration System. The required Argonne courses are available to registered users at User Facility Courses for Non-Resident Users.

EMC101, EMC User Orientation; required annually
ESH100U, Argonne User Facility Orientation; required every 2 years
ESH223U, Cyber Security Awareness Training; required annually

Argonne employees:
Argonne employees must take the equivalent courses (plus ESH377) through the normal Argonne training website. To take the courses, they must ...

Update their Job hazard Questionnaire (JHQ) by checking box D1.4.4 under Duties and Responsibilities (they are users of the EMC).
Take course EMC101 here
Take course ESH223, if they haven't already done so, here
Take course ESH377, if they haven't already done so, here

Instrument-specific Training:
Prospective microscope users must receive on-the-job training for each microscope that they will use. That training is provided by an EMC staff member using the instrument-specific standard operating procedures (SOP) and other materials as seems necessary. Safety has been incorporated into the SOPs by restricting the users to certain operations, by written/posted warnings, and by written instructions for off-normal or emergency situations. Trainees must go through a rigorous period of familiarization under the supervision of a designated user, and they must demonstrate to the responsible EMC staff member that they can operate each instrument according to its SOP before they will be qualified as a user. The EMC staff member is responsible for determining when the prospective user is qualified to operate the microscope.

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