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Proposal submission guide

1At the Mid-Infrared beamline there are two ways of getting access to beamtime.
For either type of access one has to register or log in on the CLS User portal: http://user.lightsource.ca

General user proposals

  • Access to beamtime for long term projects
  • Can be submitted for one to four cycles
  • Peer reviewed by international reviewers
  • Beamtime is obtained in ~6 months for the following cycle

Special requests

  • Access to a few shifts of beamtime for preliminary experiments
  • Can be submitted only for one cycle
  • Reviewed by CLS staff for technical feasibility and safety aspects
  • Very quick access, usually in a couple weeks
  • Access route to non synchrotron related equipment

2 On the main screen navigate to the
“My proposals” tab to access the proposal submission page.

3On the left side of the screen select the appropriate link for your type of request.
It is important to do so in the list under “All Other Beamlines”!

4 After this point a proposal will be generated consisting of several different sections.
Please browse through the tabs and fill out all relevant information.

Proposal writing tips for the Mid-Infrared beamline
    These are general tips for writing a successful general user proposal to the Mid-IR beamline. Note, that the parameters can vary from experiment to experiment and special requirements need different values. If you are not sure about anything during the proposal writing process, don’t hesitate to contact anyone of us from the Mid-IR group.

  • The most important criterium when rating a proposal is whether the experiment can be performed without a synchrotron or it is absolutely necessary to use a synchrotron source. The advantage of using synchrotron radiation in the Mid-IR range lies in the brightness (number of photons per unit area) of the source. Therefore it is very important to explain, emphasize and justify in the research description the need for the small spot size for each specific experiment.
    In mapping experiments the small spot size translates to higher spatial resolution, i.e. diffraction limited in case of synchrotron based IR spectromicroscopy.
    For non-mapping type experiments the small spot size can give access to very small sample sizes.
    In the proposal questionnaire answer “diffraction limited” to the spot size question.

  • How much beamtime do I need? Well, it depends on a few parameters, such as spectral resolution, number of scans for each spectrum, spatial resolution, mapping area, etc…
    The rule of thumb is that taking one spectrum requires about one minute (4 wavenumber resolution, 128 scans). Thus in case of point-by-point mapping it is easy to calculate how long it would take to measure a certain size map. Let’s say a 100 x 100 μm area with 10 μm step size would be a 100 points, which is roughly a 100 minutes, so in one eight hour shift one can measure 6-7 different samples or areas.
    In case of FPA mapping one image can be measured in 5-10 minutes. If the area of interest is bigger than what can be covered by one image then this time multiplies by the number of images. The field of view depends on the objectives that are used in the experiment. (36x objective ~71 μm2, 15x objective ~170 μm2 with 64×64 pixels. Note, that with synchortron light only about 20×20 pixels can be illuminated.)

  • Although our spectrometers are capable of 0.5 wavenumber resolution, usually 1-4 wavenumber resolution is satisfactory for most of our users’ experiments. It is important to note that the acquisition time for one spectrum depends on the resolution.
    For experiments that don’t require especially high resolution answer “4 wavenumbers” in the proposal questionnaire to the spectral resolution question.