For Users

You have already a good design of your experiment or have some lab data that needs to be completed by research at a synchrotron facility.

Please investigate further on the Diamond and I08 web pages if the I08 instrument is suited for your experiment in terms of imaging and spectromicroscopy modes, photon energy range and specimen environments.This should happen before you start writing a proposal. This is a good moment to contact us for the 1st time.

Select the proposal access route. I08-SXM offfers two different access routes, which are 'standard' access and 'rapid access'. 

Standard access is for projects that have preliminary data or which have corroborating evidence that the I08-SXM scheme will most probably produce good data which will contribute towards publication or further experiments. Such proposals are peer-reviewed by an external committee. Rapid access is for proof-of-principle or seed/feasibility studies. It is allocated based on availability and after consultation with the Principal Beamline Scientist. These proposals are internally reviewed. 

In case of standard access, please consult the User office web pages for call for proposal deadlines. These deadlines are typically end of March for the allocation period from October to March the following year, and end of September for the allocation period from April to September the following year. 

Please form your proposal in close consultation with the Principal beamline scientist and/ or BL staff. Discuss with us all technical aspects relevant for your experiment including available imaging modes, specimen environments, required shifts and requirements of external labs and instrumentation. This should happen far in advance of the call for proposal deadline and we will not be able to respond to your last-minute requests a couple of days before the proposal deadline.

Submit your proposal online in the Diamond User Administration System (UAS). The Diamond User Office provides detailed guidelines on how to submit a proposal in UAS,

If you have had previous experiments related or not related to your proposal, please ensure that you have submitted your required experiments report and indicate publications and/ or expected manuscript submission.

Important note: It is mandatory that you discuss your experiment in detail with BL staff. Otherwise you risk that your proposal will be rejected by the Peer Review Committee.  

Setup time is often required prior to beamtime.  UAS now has the functionality to book pre and post beamtime providing that it is contiguous with the beamtime.  The benefit of scheduling time in this way means that users are able to request additional nights for accommodation and can clearly indicate when they are arriving, making all information much more joined up.

Additional pre-experiment set-up time is required if your experiment needs unconventional specimen environments for in-situ and and -in-operando studies.

NOTE: This time can only be scheduled by the scheduler if no arrangements have been submitted by the team.  If arrangements have already been booked then any updates must be done manually via the User Office.  For that reason, pre and post time should be scheduled as part of the scheduling process.

Diamond has a number of policies surrounding User access to Diamond. Please find these policies in full in this section. In addition to the main policy document, in a number of cases there is a corresponding set of procedures or rules that apply within these policies. 

Please read both the policy and the procedures/rules to ensure you are aware of the current process in place at the time of your visit.  Please do not hesitate to contact the User Office if you have any questions.