General Policies:

These policies have been set after discussion with the Shared Instrumentation Committee and the Chair of the Department in order to provide quality crystallographic services to departmental users as well as to external researchers.

• Single crystal experiments are performed on a first come first served basis except in case of special circumstances (e.g. stability). The latter should be discussed with the PI.
• Scheduling of powder experiments is subject of available time and has to be done (by all users) using FACES online system - Booking Instrumental Time.
• Work for departmental users has priority over work for outsiders.
• The crystallographer has some flexibility in scheduling experiments and performing structure refinement in order to optimize the productivity.
• Every crystal structure is considered as being important and all possible effort will be made to solve and finalize refinement in reasonable amount of time. However some difficult cases may require considerable effort and longer time and therefore will be handled as time permits.

Charges:

• Currently there are flat charges per sample for single crystal experiments and combined per sample and per hour charges for the use of powder diffractometers. Advanced instruments (XRR and SAXS) are charged per hour. Experiment setup, sample preparation, basic analysis and training performed by XCC stuff are charged additionally.
• Our rates as of Feb. 1, 2021 can be found here.
• More details on the charges are available on request.

Co-authorship:

• Co-authorship guidelines that are expected to follow in the X-ray crystallographic laboratory are in agreement with ACA regulations and with policies accepted at the majority of crystallographic laboratories.
• The crystallographer should be considered for co-authorship when the structural information is an important part of the paper and has been derived from the diffraction data.
• If structure determination was used only to confirm information obtained by other means (NMR, mass spec, etc.) and no structural details will be given in the paper, only acknowledgment is more appropriate. An acknowledgement may also be sufficient in case of routine powder diffraction experiment without structure determination or refinement.
• It is also common practice to acknowledge funds used to purchase the equipment.

Housekeeping & Sample Preparation:

• As a part of safety practice it is mandatory that users leave working place (diffractometers, benches, etc.) clean and organized after experiment is done.
• Anyone who finds place in unacceptable conditions shall record conditions and time in the log book and/or inform the PI.
• Users that do not comply with the above requirements (repeatedly) will be charged for cleaning work place by lab staff and might be suspended from work in the lab.
• Users of the powder diffractometer are responsible for emptying and cleaning sample holders after experiment ends as soon as possible.
• XCC will charge equivalent to the cost of 1 hour experiment if samples with remain in the lab for longer that reasonable time needed for users to pick up left-over and usused samples.
• Powder samples has to be prepared only in dedicated area. Static and fine powder samples including griding samples should be prepared and handeled in powder glove box.
• User must make every effort to make sure that powder sample is compact and will not fly around when placed on the instrument.