User Policy

The User policy includes:

  • Pass a clean room safety and gowning exam. All visitors, who have passed the safety exam, may enter the NCF lab and clean room spaces, if only to observe.
  • Certification by an NCF trainer that they are capable of operating each piece of equipment they intend to use. The NCF trainer will check that the user understands the operating principles of the equipment as well as the exact operating procedures before the user can be listed as a “user” of that piece of equipment. Each piece of equipment typically requires 1 to 5 half-day training sessions before the user is ready to be certified as a “user” by an NCF trainer. See section 2 “Training” below.
  • “Users” must follow all guidelines taught during training when operating each piece of equipment and sign in the appropriate logbook. NCF users must sign in the log book BEFORE they use a piece of equipment and they must sign out AFTER they are finished with it. All Users must also sign into UICore, the billing and reservation database system, if a reservation time has been entered.
  • Safety glasses must be worn at ALL times in any wet bay in the clean room: photo lithography, wet etching I, and wet etching II.
  • Open toed shoes are not allowed in the clean room, and legs must be completely covered (no shorts, skirts…). Exposed legs as well as nylon socks or stockings are not allowed.
  • Meet with the facility manager once a month to review their NCF activities.
  • Attend 90% of the NCF meetings and give a talk about their research once per semester.
  • Work in the NCF only during regular hours, Monday to Friday 8am – 5:30pm, when UIC ERF building is open. For continued work in the NCF outside normal facility hours, see the section entitled “Extended Access Policy” below.
  • Observe the NCF rules on what chemicals are used in each clean room bay.
    No chemicals should be stored in the pass-through.
  • Observe the safe handling and disposal of wet chemicals.
  • Report all equipment problems immediately to the facility lab manager.
  • Equipment must be reserved using the RRC-NCF UICore database system, and if a user is not present at the beginning of their reserved time slot, then they will lose their reservation.
  • Acknowledge the NCF in any publication that is supported by research carried out with NFC facilities.
  • Provide the laboratory director with PowerPoint slides and a summary of their NCF activities for promotional purposes.

If any member of the NCF staff (facility director, facility lab manager, or graduate research assistant trainer) feels that any user is not capable of carrying out their responsibilities they will immediately terminate the user’s NCF access. The faculty supervisor, and the NCF staff will then determine how to correct the situation and if NCF access can be restored. Depending on the circumstances of the problem, NCF access can be suspended for 2 weeks or more. NOTE: There are no exceptions, even though it comes at an awkward time in the user’s research. The NCF user fee will not be refunded in these situations.