Experiments at TOMCAT are grouped into: non-proprietary (academic) experiments, proprietary experiments, and in-house research and development of instruments and methods. The information provided below are dedicated to academic users. They contain information on writing, submission and evaluation of proposals, as well as schedules and contacts. For more information on proprietary and industrial experiments please go to our Industry page.
General guidelines and information on how to submit a proposal for beamtime at the Swiss Light Source can be found in the SLS Proposals Information. The schedule and deadlines for the next proposal calls for TOMCAT can be found on the SLS proposal calls website. The SLS proposal evaluation procedure is described here. Consult these pages first before reading the TOMCAT-specific guidelines below.
To prepare a strong proposal for your beamtime application at TOMCAT, please make sure to follow these specific guidelines:
1. Consult the TOMCAT webpage
Consult the TOMCAT webpage (Imaging Techniques, Safety, Beamline Information, etc.) when planning experiments to get a good idea of the technical capabilities that we can offer.
2. Contact a beamline staff
Especially if you are a new user or are proposing something new that either you or we have never tried before, we strongly recommend that you contact a beamline scientist well in advance before the proposal deadline to discuss experimental details and the feasibility of your planned approach. We are very open and happy to discuss your project and to provide input for your proposal.
Users planning complex experiments with custom in situ environments or equipment, as well as anyone working with potentially dangerous setups (lasers, high voltage, high pressures, etc.) or samples with special ethical considerations (live animals, human tissue samples, etc.) should contact TOMCAT staff also to discuss the implications of the planned experiments on the proposal process.
3. Include required information in the proposal
Please include the following information in the section describing the experimental details of your experiments. This will help beamline staff to assess the technical feasibility of the experiments and allow us to give you constructive feedback if problems and challenges are likely to occur:
- Material to be investigated: Sample sizes, chemical composition and density, etc.
- Size of the region of interest (if different from the sample size)
- Size of the smallest features to be investigated
- For evolving samples, information on the time scales involved
- The number of samples to be investigated during the beamtime. Particularly for biological questions, explain clearly the minimum number of samples required to achieve statistically relevant results.
- The number of scans required per sample
4. Justify the use of synchrotron beamtime
Provide a clear description why for this proposal it is necessary to use synchrotron beamtime at TOMCAT. Explain why other similar or complementary methods (for example, lab-based CT scans, SEM or TEM measurements, histology, etc.) are not adequate to tackle your problem, and why TOMCAT is your preferred choice for imaging.
5. Justify the required beamtime
Justify the amount of beamtime you are asking for. Check with the beamline staff, if you are unsure of typical scan times. Unless you are planning a very complex setup, if the experiment is well prepared, it usually does not take an entire shift to set up the beamline for your measurements.
6. Provide a data size estimate and data analysis plan
Give an estimate of the size of data that will be generated /data storage space needed (raw + reconstructed data) in GB and include information in the proposal on how you plan to analyse the data and transform the measurements acquired at TOMCAT into publishable information. A solid plan and the required expertise (either in your own team or through collaborations) to make maximum use of the acquired data are important for ensuring a high impact of your project.