Acknowledging Achievement
By Anna Lynn Spitzer
Irvine, Ca, July 18th, 2013 -- LEXI – the Calit2-managed Laboratory for Electron and X-ray Instrumentation – last week celebrated the end of a successful fiscal year with a lunch for lab-affiliated faculty, staff and students. Calit2 Irvine Director G.P. Li, LEXI operations director Jian-Guo Zheng and faculty director Matt Law addressed the group, thanking attendees for their contributions to LEXI’s success and sharing plans for the upcoming year.
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LEXI, which encompasses Calit2’s 3D Characterization Lab and its Material Characterization Lab, as well as the Materials Characterization Center (MC2) in Engineering Tower, now boasts 230 users said Zheng, and last year added $2.5 million in new equipment. (LEXI is a recharge facility, open to UCI and external users.)
That growth will continue this year, as a new surface scanning microscope and additional tunneling electron microscopes are delivered, advancing the lab’s reputation as the Southland’s go-to site for microscopy.
“Our expansion and the campus’s commitment to developing the lab are making this one of the most sought-after microscopy facilities in Southern California,” attracting users from an ever-widening geographic area, Law said, “This has been the lab’s best year yet,” he added.
LEXI focuses on crystal structures, surface topography, materials microstructure and chemical microanalysis, and offers a wide range of materials characterization instrumentation and techniques. Current equipment includes 3D light microscopy, 3D vibrometer and surface metrology, scanning electron microscopy (SEM), focus ion beam (FIB), energy dispersive spectroscopy (EDS), electron backscatter diffraction (EBSD), transmission electron microscopy (TEM), atomic force microscopy (AFM) and X-ray diffraction (XRD), as well as a comprehensive specimen preparation facility.
“We’ve come a long way in a short period of time, thanks to the contributions of all of you,” Li told the group. “We have good leadership, a dedicated lab manager and technicians, and hard-working staff and students – and that is really paying off.”