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Introduction
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- Eating and drinking is not allowed in any of the AFM rooms
- Lab coats and gloves do not need to be worn unless handling viable biological specimens
- Slides, coverslips, tips and other sharps must be disposed of in the yellow sharps bins
- Gloves, tissues and other clinical waste must be disposed of in the yellow bins. DO NOT use the yellow bins for viable biological waste, liquids, food waste, slides and other sharps.
- All biological waste (e.g. viable cells in dishes or plates) must be taken out of the AFM labs, decontaminated and disposed of.
- Any spills of biological material must be cleaned up and decontaminated immediately. Aqueous medium must be mopped up with towels and decontaminated using 70% IMS.
- Spills of aqueous medium directly onto microscope optics or components must be reported immediately. Do not attempt to clean microscope optics yourself unless you have been trained to do so.
- Any coverslips and slides broken on the microscope must be removed and disposed of in the sharps bin. All small pieces of glass must be removed during the clean-up so there is no risk of injury to other users.
- Anything brought into the AFM labs must be taken away when the session is finished. Anything left behind will be disposed of. It is not our responsibility to keep your samples.
- Do not tamper with any of the cables between the controller and the microscope or the computer and the controller
- Do not shine the AFM laser in your eyes or direct it at other users (laser power is class 2M or 3R depending on the system)
- Make sure the Z scanner is only plugged or unplugged when the high voltage is off on the Dimension FastScan
Rules for the Nanowizard, CellHesion and Ultra Speed systems
- Make sure both sides of the glass block are clean before you mount cantilevers. These can be cleaned with lens tissue and pure ethanol. If the glass block is heavily contaminated, it can be sonicated in the floating rack which is shown here.
- Do not put the glass block down on the bench, it will scratch the surface, please use the holder.
- Do not use highly acidic or basic buffers (<pH 4.6, >pH 9.0). This will cause a white deposit to appear on the surface of the glass block which cannot be removed.
- Do not overwind the laser or photodetector alignment screws. If they reach the end points do not turn any further.
- Make sure the laser is turned off before looking down the eyepieces of the microscope. An IR filter is in place in front of the eyepieces, but its best practice to make sure the laser is turned off.
- When approaching the sample, take great care in your course step size. It is very easy to crash into the surface which at worst could damage the piezo stack on the instrument.
Rules for the Dimension Icon system
Rules for the Dimension FastScan system
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Other AFM facility rules
- Every session on the AFM instruments must be booked on the Agendo booking system