Welcome to WATLab

Celebrating 25 years of novel materials research and new application development in Canada

Established with funding support from Canada Foundation for Innovation and the Province of Ontario in 1999, WATLab is the first multidisciplinary materials research centre in Canada's Technology Triangle.  WATLab offers a completetoolset for advanced materials research and emerging technology development.  Most of our instrument systems are state-of-the-art and some are unique in Canada.

News

The new WITec Alpha 300 system with a 532-nm and a 785-nm lasers has been commissioned at the end of October. This system represents a significant upgrade over the Bruker Senterra system because it has better spectral resolution and, more importantly, true confocal capability that enables spectral depth profiling and high-speed mapping. There is also a time-resolved PL life-time measurement system that we believe would be helpful to some users. While we are learning a lot of these new features ourselves, we ask users who could take immediate advantage of these features to submit samples (to Joseph). Together with the Nexus G2 XPS system commissioned last year and the Auger microprobe that we manage to keep alive thus far as well as other tools (FTIR microscope, SIMS, PPMS and MPMS), WATLab continues to offer advanced spectromicroscopy analysis second to none in Canada. [Auger is important because it remains the only surface-sensitive elemental analysis technique capable of true nanoscale spatial resolution. Please see Lei for Auger work.] Despite a few setbacks triggered by unplanned power interruptions in C2, we have also managed to keep our entire SEM and AFM fleets operating close to specs.

Unlike before when we could easily update the content of our website, updating the new website requires us to learn this WCMS3 s/w as dictated by IST. This has unfortunately given us unnecessary extra work, as IST seems to be constantly moving to the next s/w (not unlike a moving target). We ask our users for their patience here. We have found that while the webform for sample submission is good in theory (perhaps in terms of getting website traffic statistics that we don’t need), we have very little control of it, making the response to the webform request slow and rather frustrating for the users. So, we request our users to contact Nina (nheinig@uwaterloo.ca) directly if there is an urgent sample request (to avoid delay).

Finally, we take this opportunity to wish all our users a happy Christmas and all the very best in the new year! Good data mining.

Wednesday, February 28, 2024

WATLab has a new website and new tools!

The WATLab website has been reworked to comply with web accessibility standards under Ontario law.  We are slowly learning the new WCMS 3 system and we ask our users to be patient with us as there will likely be some instability in this process.  Please report anything unusual to Nina.

WATLab has started the process of adding two new tools this year:  a micro XRF system and an advanced Raman confocal system.  Both will extend what we can currently do at WATLab.  The new XPS system and the upgraded SIMS system (installed in 2023) have been working well, and we welcome new samples.  We have also installed a new source in the Libra 200 MC TEM system, which has significantly improved the image quality.  WATLab looks forward to assisting all our users in need of these and other advanced tools at WATLab.

Wednesday, December 6, 2023

CWL shutdown update

We have implemented a workaround (the CWL shutdown).  All the SEMs are back up and should be stable. 

The campus-wide chilled water loop (CWL) shutdown on Dec 6 and 7 is going to affect multiple systems at WATLab.  We are taking proactive measure to shutdown the affected systems before this CWL shutdown at 6 am tomorrow.  Plant Operations said that the CWL will be back on by Friday. We apologise for the inconvenience, and we take this opportunity to wish our users Happy Christmas and Wonderful New Year.

Remote video URL

Contact us

University of Waterloo
Chemistry 2
Rm. 059-066/080/081A
Tel: 519-888-4567 ext. 35826
Director - Professor Tong Leung 

Contact the WATLab
manager or director