National school on Neutron and X‐ray scattering alumni presentations

The 4th joint Stanford–Berkeley summer school on synchrotron radiation and its applications in physical science was held June 12–17, 2005, at the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center (SLAC). The Stanford–Berkeley summer school is jointly organized by Stanford University, University of California Berkeley, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL), and the Stanford Synchrotron Radiation Laboratory (SSRL). Since 2001, Anders Nilsson (Stanford/SSRL) and Dave Attwood (UC Berkeley) have been the organizers of this annual weeklong summer school, which alternates each year between Stanford and Berkeley. The summer school provides lecture programs on synchrotron radiation and its broad range of scientific applications in the physical science as well as visits to the Stanford Synchrotron Radiation Laboratory and the Advanced Light Source (ALS), where the students also have the opportunity to experience a beam line.     

Meeting Report: SSRL School on Synchrotron X-ray Scattering Techniques in Materials and Environmental Sciences: Theory and Application

Modern synchrotron-based X-ray scattering (SR-XRS) techniques offer the ability to probe nano- and atomic-scale structures, interfaces, and order/disorder relationships that govern the properties of advanced technological and environmental materials. Important materials studied at the Stanford Synchrotron Radiation Laboratory (SSRL) include thin films and interfaces, nanoparticles, amorphous materials, solutions, polymers, and bacteriogenic minerals. Good planning and a working knowledge of beam lines and techniques are required to successfully conduct SR-XRS measurements. This second annual School at SSRL on Synchrotron X-ray Scattering Techniques in Materials and Environmental Sciences, held at the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center (SLAC) on May 15–17, 2007, provided a practical users' guide to planning and conducting scattering measurements at SSRL beam lines, with an emphasis on information that cannot be found in textbooks. More than 45 researchers, mostly graduate students and postdocs, participated in this crosscutting workshop. Attendees represented a variety of fields including material sciences, applied physics, environmental sciences, and chemistry.     

SSRL Fifth Annual School on Synchrotron X-ray Scattering Techniques in Materials and Environmental Sciences: Theory and Application

Synchrotron-based X-ray scattering (SR-XRS) techniques offer the ability to probe nano- and atomic-scale structure that dictates the properties of advanced technological and environmental materials. Important materials studied at the Stanford Synchrotron Radiation Lightsource (SSRL) include organic and inorganic thin films and interfaces, nanoparticles, monolayers, complex oxides, solutions, polymers, minerals, and poorly crystalline materials. Good planning and a working knowledge of beam lines and techniques are required to successfully conduct SR-XRS measurements. This fifth annual School at SSRL on Synchrotron X-ray Scattering Techniques in Materials and Environmental Sciences, held at the SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory on June 1–3, 2010, provided a practical users' guide to planning and conducting scattering measurements at SSRL beam lines, with an emphasis on information that cannot be found in textbooks. More than 45 researchers, mostly graduate students and postdoctoral associates, participated in this workshop. Attendees represented a variety of fields including material sciences, chemical engineering, applied physics, environmental and earth sciences, and chemistry.     

LCLS/SSRL Users' Meeting and Workshops Draw Hundreds to SLAC

Three hundred participants learned about the latest scientific capabilities at the Stanford Synchrotron Radiation Lightsource (SSRL) and Linac Coherent Light Source (LCLS) during the 2012 LCLS/SSRL Users' Meeting. The event included several workshops and sessions focused on specific science areas as well as talks about the latest scientific trends, challenges, and calls for more public outreach to spread the word about light source science.     

News & views: New Scientific Opportunities at the European Synchrotron Radiation Facility

Approximately 400 participants learned about the latest scientific capabilities at the Stanford Synchrotron Radiation Lightsource (SSRL) and Linac Coherent Light Source (LCLS) during the 2013 Users' Meeting at the SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory, October 1–4, 2013. The Users' Meeting included more than a dozen workshops as well as scientific awards, poster presentations, and talks on the latest scientific trends, challenges, and opportunities.     

Spring school on magnetic properties of condensed matter

The sixth joint Stanford-Berkeley summer school on synchrotron radiation and its applications in physical science was held on August 17?22, 2008, at the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center (SLAC). The Stanford-Berkeley summer school is jointly organized by the Stanford University, University of California Berkeley, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL), and the Stanford Synchrotron Radiation Lightsource (SSRL). Anders Nilsson (Stanford) and Dave Attwood (Berkeley) have been the organizers of this one-week summer school since 2001. It alternates between Stanford and Berkeley. The summer school provides lecture programs on synchrotron radiation and its broad range of scientific applications in the physical science, visits to the Stanford Synchrotron Radiation Lightsource and the Advanced Light Source, where the students also have the opportunity to join a beamline. The program is designed to introduce students and postdocs to the fundamental properties of synchrotron radiation and how to understand and use spectroscopic, scattering and microscopy techniques in various scientific applications. Particular emphasis is given to examples from physics, chemistry, and material science.     

Meeting Report: SSRL X-ray Absorption Spectroscopy Short Course

The Stanford Synchrotron Radiation Laboratory (SSRL) held a short course on X-ray absorption spectroscopy (XAS) and its applications in structural molecular biology on March 13–16, 2007. The course was attended by 18 participants from across the United States and Canada, and consisted of two days of lectures, followed by two days of hands-on practical sessions.     

The fast show with x‐rays and electrons

On October 20–26, 2004, more than 350 people participated in the 31st Annual Stanford Synchrotron Radiation Laboratory (SSRL) Users' Meeting, workshops, and social events. The presentation by SSRL Director Keith Hodgson in the opening session focused on the success in 2004 in getting SPEAR3 and the SSRL beam lines operating and productive. Looking towards the future, he discussed the exciting new opportunities at the Linac Coherent Light Source (LCLS), an X-ray free electron laser. Hodgson emphasized the importance of safety when conducting experiments at SSRL, a point strongly reiterated by SLAC Director Jonathan Dorfan.     

A High Resolution,Hard X-ray Bio-imaging Facility at SSRL

The old saying that seeing is believing has particular resonance for studying biological cells and tissues. Since 1677, when Anton van Leeuwenhoek used a simple light microscope to discover single cell organisms, scientists have relied on structural information obtained from microscopes with improving capabilities to advance the understanding of how biological systems work. Optical and electron microscopes are essential for many of these important discoveries and have been widely employed in biomedical research laboratories. However, various limitations exist in these microscopy techniques. We describe below how the new X-ray imaging facility at the Stanford Synchrotron Radiation Laboratory (SSRL), based on an Xradia nano-XCT full-field transmission X-ray microscope (TXM), can provide complementary and unique capabilities to the current microscopy methods for studying complex biological systems.     

Creating coherent x-rays and putting them to use: X-ray photon correlation spectroscopy at beamline 8-1d at the advanced photon source

Stanford Synchrotron Radiation Laboratory (SSRL) entered a new era of synchrotron radiation experimentation in March 2004 with the start of the first experimental run following the completion of the SPEAR3 upgrade project [1]. Intense X-rays at the macromolecular crystallography stations, combined with state-of-the-art equipment, including high-speed CCD detectors and sophisticated control system software, now enable high-quality diffraction images to be collected in only a few seconds and entire crystallography datasets in a matter of minutes.

With significant reduction in the time required to collect a dataset, the period necessary to enter the experimental hutch to manually mount and dismount crystal samples is often a significant percentage of the users' total beam time allocation.     

Meeting Reports: SSRL Structural Molecular Biology Summer School 2005

The fifth Structural Molecular Biology (SMB) Summer School (SMB) was held at the Stanford Synchrotron Radiation Laboratory (SSRL) from September 12-15, 2005. This year the school focused on two synchrotron-based techniques: X-ray absorption spectroscopy and macromolecular crystallography and the application of these techniques to biological problems. This year’s Summer School was attended by 21 students and taught by a team of 14 tutors. It consisted of a day and a half of lectures, followed by two days of rotating practical sessions, concluding with another half-day of lectures on advanced topics in synchrotron-based structural molecular biology.     

News and Views: Major European Light Sources Join Forces in the ERF

Synchrotron-based X-ray scattering (SR-XRS) techniques offer the ability to probe nano- and atomic-scale structures that dictate the properties of advanced technological and environmental materials. Important materials studied at the Stanford Synchrotron Radiation Lightsource (SSRL) include organic and inorganic thin films and interfaces, nanoparticles, complex oxides, solutions, polymers, minerals, and poorly crystalline materials. Good planning and a good working knowledge of beamlines and techniques are required to successfully conduct SR-XRS measurements. This sixth annual School at SSRL on Synchrotron X-ray Scattering Techniques in Materials and Environmental Sciences was held at the SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory on May 29-31, 2012, and provided a practical users' guide to planning and conducting scattering measurements at SSRL beam lines. There was an emphasis on information that cannot be found in textbooks. More than 50 researchers, mostly graduate students and postdoctoral associates, participated in this workshop. Attendees represented a variety of fields including material sciences, chemical engineering, applied physics, chemistry and earth sciences.     

2009 SSRL School on X-ray Spectroscopy Techniques in Environmental and Materials Sciences: Theory and Application

More than 50 students, post-docs, and career scientists from US national laboratories, academic institutions, and the international user community participated in this four-day school, held from June 2–5, 2009, which delved deeply into theoretical and practical aspects of synchrotron X-ray spectroscopy. The fourth annual school on synchrotron techniques in environmental and materials sciences, organized by the Stanford Synchrotron Radiation Lightsource (SSRL) at the SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory, was designed to introduce new and prospective users to theoretical underpinnings and capabilities of the techniques, data collection procedures, and data analysis approaches. More advanced topics, particularly in data analysis, were also discussed to reinforce and clarify important concepts that are fundamental to data interpretation. Although the school focused principally on applications in environmental and materials sciences, diverse and cross-cutting disciplinary backgrounds were represented, from environmental remediation science and geochemistry, to heterogeneous catalysis and bioinorganic chemistry, to materials sciences and applied physics.     

A compact warm ring for industrial applications

The ultrafast, high brightness X-ray free electron laser (XFEL) sources of the future have the potential to revolutionize the study of time-dependent phenomena in the natural sciences. These linear accelerator (linac) sources will generate femtosecond (fs) X-ray pulses with peak flux comparable to conventional lasers, and far exceeding all other X-ray sources. The Stanford Linear Accelerator Center (SLAC) has pioneered the development of linac science and technology for decades, and since 2000 SLAC and the Stanford Synchrotron Radiation Laboratory (SSRL) have focused on the development of linac based ultrafast electron and X-ray sources.     

2016 Liquid Surface X-ray Scattering School: Data Analysis

X-ray surface scattering is the most powerful probe of near-atomic-level structure at liquid-vapor and liquid-liquid interfaces. Synchrotron X-ray sources throughout the world have specialized instruments available for the study of these interfaces. Since 2002, the ChemMatCARS facility at Sector 15 of the Advanced Photon Source near Chicago, IL, USA, has assisted general users in the study of liquid surfaces and interfaces to model processes of interest to physical, chemical, and biological scientists. ChemMatCARS recently sponsored its third School for Liquid Surface X-ray Scattering (LSXS 2016), held at the Advanced Photon Source (APS) at Argonne National Laboratory on May 12–13, 2016. Methods of data analysis were featured, providing students with the opportunity to fit data, analyze errors, and participate in virtual experiments. Techniques covered this year included X-ray reflectivity (XR), grazing incidence diffraction (GID), X-ray fluorescence near total reflection (XFNTR), and X-ray photon correlation spectroscopy (XPCS). This is the third year that the LSXS School has been held at APS, the first year being in 2007 and the second in 2012.     

Continuous‐scan capability at SSRL and applications to X‐ray diffraction

Typical X‐ray diffraction measurements are made by moving a detector to discrete positions in space and then measuring the signal at each stationary position. This step‐scanning method can be time‐consuming, and may induce vibrations in the measurement system when the motors are accelerated and decelerated at each position. Furthermore, diffraction information between the data points may be missed unless a fine step‐scanning is used, which further increases the total measurement time. To utilize beam time efficiently, the motor acceleration and deceleration time should be minimized, and the signal‐to‐noise ratio should be maximized. To accomplish this, an integrated continuous‐scan system was developed at the Stanford Synchrotron Radiation Lightsource (SSRL). The continuous‐scan system uses an in‐house integrated motor controller system and counter/timer electronics. SPEC software is used to control both the hardware and data acquisition systems. The time efficiency and repeatability of the continuous‐scan system were tested using X‐ray diffraction from a ZnO powder and compared with the step‐scan technique. Advantages and limitations of the continuous‐scan system and a demonstration of variable‐velocity continuous scan are discussed.     

利用X光散射实验研究C-S-H的微观结构

为了了解波特兰水泥中的水化硅酸钙(C-S-H)的微观结构,对有无含添加剂superplasticizers(SPs)、从5天到68天的不同老化时间的波特兰水泥样品的X光散射实验,实验数据结果分析表明C-S-H中钙硅层间距的大小是0.98±0.01nm,结果说明波特兰水泥样品中C-S-H中钙硅层间距与样品是否含SPs以及样品的老化时间无关。     

High resolution X-ray spectroscopy using synchrotron radiation: Source characteristics and optical systems

In this paper we describe the properties of the SPEAR storage ring at the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center as a synchrotron radiation source for X-ra     

Those Wonderful Pioneer Years of SSRL: A Personal Reflection

It is a rare moment in the history of science when a new capability is born that transforms our ability to “see” what is happening in the world in which we live. The use of the light emitted from accelerating electrons as they are bent by magnetic fields that was pioneered at SSRL in the 1970s is not just another example of this, but arguably is the most important development in the history of science in enabling us to “see” the world of electrons and atoms. There is, in addition, a special feature of the new capability enabled by synchrotron radiation: it is likely to remain, in the future, the best way to see the microscopic world forever. This is because the light used to “see” does not only have all the intensity one needs, but also because all its properties can be adjusted so as to provide the ideal illumination for the particular thing one wants to “see.” Thus, literally what was born at SSRL, which has since then been and will be continually improved, will forever provide our species the ability to “see” and understand the microscopic world in which we live.