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Facility Access: General Procedure

Synchrotron

To gain access to experimental time (“beamtime”), you need to submit a proposal to the facility. If you are a new user, it’s recommended to first consult a local KTH expert, who can advise on the feasibility of your project and help you choose the right source or instrument. Writing a proposal is similar to applying for research funding, and most facilities have 1–2 calls per year with fixed deadlines (see the menu for a list of sources and approximate dates).

Large-scale facilities are not like an in-house lab where you can conduct a measurement ”whenever you want”. To gain access to experimental time, i.e. ”beamtime”, a proposal have to be submitted to the facility in question. If you are a new user, before writing a proposal, it is good to talk to one of the local KTH Experts. They can give you valuable advice on if you project is feasible, which source/instrument to apply to, etc.

Procedure for writing and submitting a good proposal is very similar to a funding proposal and there are usually 1-2 calls per year with fixed deadlines (see list of sources with approximate proposal deadlines in menu).

When the proposal is submitted it will go to an international review panel that will rank all proposal according to several criteria (feasibility, scientific excellence, potential scientific and societal impact, need for large-scale beamtime, etc.). After 3-6 months you will receive an answer if your proposal was granted and how many days of beamtime you have been allocated. The beamtime will then be scheduled and you can travel to the facility to conduct your experiment. This procedure (from submission of proposal to performing the experiment) usually takes 6-12 months, i.e. one has to plan ahead for projects involving measurements at large-scale facilities. In very high-impact and time-sensitive cases it could be possible to gain exclusive rapid access (e.g. so-called ”Director's Beamtime” or fast-track proposals). However, this is very hard to get approved!

Step by step

  1. Have an idea for how large-scale facilities can help answer your research question(s)
  2. Talk to an expert (see Local KTH experts in menu)
  3. Consider your sample!!! (available size/mass, crystal/powder/thin film)
  4. Think about if you sample contains elements with low scattering or high absorption. Here is a link with useful data for neutron scattering: http://www.ncnr.nist.gov/resources/n-lengths/
  5. Contact instrument responsible to discuss experiment (>1 week before you submit proposal!)
  6. Write a proposal (see Beamtime Proposal in the menu) and apply for beamtime at your selected source/instrument. Note that most facilities only have two proposal deadlines per year!
  7. Cross your fingers and wait for the review committee results (about 2-3 months) + in some cases ”national quota”
  8. If you obtain beamtime start to prepare your experiments well advance (align crystals, sample holders etc.)
  9. Check necessary paperwork in country + at source and perform the mandatory ”safety training”
  10. If you plan to do experiments at different sources with same samples: consider activation of your samples (active sample transport is complicated and expensive!)

Please see a detailed "work-flow" in the menu to the left that takes you through the process of writing a proposal, preparing and executing the experiment, as well as what happens after.