Geochemical and mineralogical laboratories

The mineralogical and geochemical laboratories of HelLabs focous on the in-situ and whole rock compositional variability of solid Earth materials.

Electron microprobe laboratory - NEW EPMA probe (currently being installed, operational spring 2023)

  • Electron microprobe JEOL JXA-iSP100 Superprobe with LaB6 emitter, 5 WDS detectors and SDD EDS detector, 

The Electron probe microanalyzer or "microprobe" is designed for non-destructive micrometer-sized spot quantitative chemical analysis from polished mineral sample surfaces. 

  • Scanning Electron Microscope JEOL 5900 with SDD EDS detector and CT unit, upgraded with SAMx hardware and XMAs/IDFix/Diss5 analytical software

Contact: Laboratory Engineer Katie Doig

X-ray Labor­at­ory

  • XRD Panalytical X’Pert3 Powder, X-ray powder diffractometer
  • XRD software: Malvern Panalytical HighScore Plus 4.8: Phase identification, quantitative phase analysis, cluster analysis, etc.
  • TOPAS-Academic V6: General non-linear least squares system driven by a scripting language; quantitative phase analysis, crystallographic analysis, etc.
  • ICDD PDF4 Minerals reference database
  • XRF Panalytical Axios mAX 4 kW, X-ray fluorescence wavelength dispersive spectrometer, measures elemental composition of rock powder using fused glass beads.

Contact information: Laboratory Engineer Katie Doig

LA-ICP-MS laboratory

  • Coherent GeoLas MV 193 nm Laser, small volume sample cell is tuned for measurement of melt and fluid inclusions combined to an

  • Agilent 7900s ICP mass spectrometer.
  • Hot CL Lumic HC6-LM, Olympus DP73 camera, hot cathode cathodoluminescence microscopy
  • Cold CL CITL analytical instruments CL 8200 Mk-2, Leica DM2700 P microscope, DFC450 C camera, cold cathode cathodoluminescence microscopy
  • FI microscopes Linkamheating/cooling stage, Leica DM2500 P and BX51 IR-microscopes / Leica DFC450 C camera, microthermometry.
  • Available standard reference materials include NIST glasses, USGS glasses and sulphide standards, PGE standards

Contact: Prof. Christoph Beier

Thermal Ionisation Mass Spectrometer and metal-free clean room facility to be installed end of 2023/beginning of 2024

Contact: Prof. Christoph Beier