XRMS 2008 Workshop at DESY

From January 23–24, 2008, the Deutsches Elektronen Synchrotron (DESY) provided a forum for more than 75 scientists from 12 countries to discuss recent developments in the investigation of magnetic solids with synchrotron radiation. The framework for this meeting was the International Workshop for X-ray Spectroscopy of Magnetic Solids (XRMS 2008). The XRMS workshop series was established in 2000 when the first meeting was held at BESSY (Berlin, Germany). It then continued annually or bi-annually, always in conjunction with a users meeting at one of the European synchrotron radiation facilities. In this year, the XRMS workshop preceded the HASYLAB Users Meeting at DESY on January 25.     

Meeting Reports: 2005 Annual Meeting of JSSRR (Japanese Society for Synchrotron Radiation Research)

The 18th Annual Meeting and General Assembly of the Japanese Society for Synchrotron Radiation Research (JSSRR) and the joint symposium of synchrotron radiation facility user's society groups were held at Sun-Messe Tosu Conference Hall in Tosu City, Japan, from January 7 to 9, 2005. The meeting was attended by 607 people and included 6 symposiums, 96 oral presentations, and 356 poster presentations covering all aspects of synchrotron radiation research and technology. The meeting also included 49 industrial exhibitions.

The six symposiums were on “Recent progress on soft X-ray optical elements,” “Now and the future on SR-XRF analysis for biological and environmental sciences,” “Recent development of THz Coherent Synchrotron Radiation,” “Super high-resolution protein structure analysis,” “Frontlines of Bio-Nano-microspectroscopy by UV-SX high brilliance SR,” and “The role of synchrotron radiation in the future of science: groundbreaking SR utilization for research on excited states”.     

ESRF 11th users' meeting and workshops

More than 90 participants from Europe, the US and Japan gathered from April 27 to 29, 2005, in Zeuthen, near Berlin, to hold a lively international meeting on time-resolved soft X-ray science. The meeting continued the series of preceding workshops held in 2002 in Napa (California, USA) and in 2003 in Montreux (Switzerland). It was organized by the three synchrotron radiation sources BESSY (Berlin, Germany), the Swiss Light Source SLS (Villigen) and the French synchrotron radiation source SOLEIL (Orsay).

The aim of the workshop was to bring together the existing ultrafast laser community and the emerging ultrafast X-ray community in order to discuss recent scientific highlights from both fields and to outline new directions for the application of ultrafast X-rays.     

VUV synchrotron radiation: a new activation technique for tandem mass spectrometry

A novel experimental technique for tandem mass spectrometry and ion spectroscopy of electrosprayed ions using vacuum‐ultraviolet (VUV) synchrotron radiation is presented. Photon activation of trapped precursor ions has been performed by coupling a commercial linear quadrupole ion trap (Thermo scientific LTQ XL), equipped with the electrosprayed ions source, to the DESIRS beamline at the SOLEIL synchrotron radiation facility. The obtained results include, for the first time on biopolymers, photodetachment spectroscopy using monochromated synchrotron radiation of multi‐charged anions and the single photon ionization of large charge‐selected polycations. The high efficiency and signal‐to‐noise ratio achieved by the present set‐up open up possibilities of using synchrotron light as a new controllable activation method in tandem mass spectrometry of biopolymers and VUV‐photon spectroscopy of large biological ions.     

Synchrotron Radiation and Polymer Science IV

The fourth meeting on the use of Synchrotron Radiation in Polymer Science (SRPS) was held in Rolduc Abbey, the Netherlands, from September 8 to 11, 2009. This was a continuation of a topical series that was started by H.G. Zachmann, one of the pioneers of the use of synchrotron radiation techniques in polymer science. Earlier meetings were held in Hamburg (1995), Sheffield (2002), and Kyoto (2006). The meeting was organized as a satellite to SAS 2009, which took place the following week in Oxford. The meeting was co-organized by the polymer groups of Leuven University (Belgium) and Eindhoven University of Technology (Netherlands), as well as the DUBBLE beam line (ESRF/NWO/FWO).     

AOFSRR 2014 in Taiwan

The Asia-Oceania Forum for Synchrotron Radiation Research (AOFSRR) was formally established by Australia, China, Japan, South Korea, Singapore, Taiwan, and Thailand in 2006. Its objective is to strengthen the collaboration, as well as the inter-communication, among the synchrotron radiation facilities and to promote synchrotron radiation sciences and accelerator-based research in the Asia-Oceania region. Regular meetings have been organized to uphold its objective. The first scientific meeting of AOFSRR took place at KEK, Japan, in 2006. Member countries have been taking turns to organize meetings: Taiwan (NSRRC, 2007), Australia (Australian Synchrotron, 2008), China (SSRF, 2009), South Korea (POSTEC, 2010), Thailand (SLRI, 2012), and Japan (SPring-8, 2013). In 2014, the National Synchrotron Radiation Research Center (NSRRC) hosted the Eighth Asia-Oceania Forum for Synchrotron Radiation Research (AOFSRR 2014) from September 15th to 18th in Hsinchu, Taiwan. The NSRRC is located in the Hsinchu Science Park, within an hour's drive from Taipei, the largest city in Taiwan. Hsinchu is a city not only composed of historical landmarks but also the heartland of high-tech semiconductor industries in Taiwan.     

The National Synchrotron Light Source, Part II:The Bakeout

This is the second part of a two-part article about the National Synchrotron Light Source (NSLS), the first facility designed and built specifically for producing and exploiting synchrotron radiation. The NSLS,a $24-million project conceived about 1970 and officially proposed in 1976, had its groundbreaking in 1978. Its construction was a key episode in Brookhaven’s history, in the transition of synchrotron radiation from a novelty to a commodity, and in the transition of synchrotron-radiation scientists from parasitic to autonomous researchers. In this part I cover the construction of the NSLS.The story of its construction illustrates many of the tensions and risks involved in building a large scientific facility in a highly politicized environment: risking a facility’s quality by underfunding it versus asking for more funding and risking not getting it; focusing on meeting time and budget promises that risk compromising machine performance versus focusing on performance and risking cancellation; and the pros and cons of a pragmatic versus an analytic approach to commissioning. Robert P. Crease is a Professor in the Department of Philosophy of Stony Brook University in Stony Brook, New York, and historian at Brookhaven National Laboratory.     

Meeting report: SNI2006: German Forum for Condensed Matter Research at Large Scale Facilities

More than 500 scientists working in the field of condensed matter research convened for a three-day meeting (SNI2006) in Hamburg, Germany, to present their latest results. They all share an enthusiasm for the use of large-scale facilities to probe the structure and dynamics of matter. The potential of synchrotron radiation, neutrons, particle probes and ionic beams to provide unique and complementary information in areas ranging from DNA to mechanical welds was demonstrated.     

Fourth ANKA and KNMF User Meeting 2012

On October 10–11, 2012, the ANKA synchrotron radiation facility and the Karlsruhe NanoMicro Facility (KNMF), both user research facilities at the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT) in Germany, hosted their fourth joint annual user meeting at the Ettlingen Castle. In the extraordinary ambiance of the baroque palace, the ANKA and KNMF directorates (represented by Clemens Heske and Jürgen Mohr, respectively) welcomed almost 200 participants representing universities, research facilities, and companies from 10 different countries. The meeting was kicked off by KIT Chief Science Officer Volker Saile, who emphasized the positive developments and increase in user numbers at both facilities.     

Personal Reminiscences from Daresbury

At Daresbury, the Three Bees commissioned the southern beamline on NINA (the Northern Institute for Nuclear Accelerators; see figure). John Beaumont was the first there. He was a member of Bill Hayes' group in Oxford and designed a custom, polarization-preserving, vertical Wadsworth monochromator, with 45 m entrance. I was the first doctoral student in synchrotron radiation, not only in our university but also at Daresbury before the early second-generation SRS (Synchrotron Radiation Source) storage ring was built. Joan Bordas was also a pioneer there, a pole vaulter from Cambridge where he worked with Yao Liang in Abe Yoffe's group. Daresbury was a country village, the birth place of Charles Dodgson, better known by his pseudonym, Lewis Carroll.     

Mössbauer optics of synchrotron radiation at an isotopic boundary

The inelastic coherent Mössbauer scattering (ICMS) of synchrotron radiation at an isotopic boundary—a flat interface between two regions of matter which have different concentrations of the Mö ssbauer isotope—is investigated theoretically. Attention is focused primarily on the ICMS component for which the absorption of a synchrotron radiation photon by a nucleus occurs with recoil, i.e., with the creation or annihilation of lattice phonons, and the subsequent process of reemission of a photon by the Mössbauer nucleus occurs without recoil, as a result of which radiation is pumped from the wide synchrotron radiation line into the narrow Mö ssbauer line. Formulas similar to the Fresnel formulas, well known in optics, for the transmission and reflection of light at a dielectric boundary are obtained for ICMS at an isotopic boundary. Specifically, it is shown that the angle of reflection for ICMS at an isotopic boundary is different from the angle of mirror reflection of a synchrotron radiation beam, and the direction of the ICMS transmitted through the isotopic boundary depends on the deviation of its frequency from the exact value of the Mössbauer resonance frequency and in general is different from the direction of propagation of the synchrotron radiation beam. The suppression of ICMS at grazing angles of incidence of the synchrotron radiation beam is analyzed. A similar problem is solved for a plate-shaped sample containing a Mössbauer isotope. It is shown that the specific nature of the ICMS at an isotopic boundary could be helpful in the problem of Mö ssbauer filtering of synchrotron radiation.     

Synchrotron Radiation Facilities in China

Synchrotron radiation activities in China date back to the late 1970s. With the large increase of investment in science by the Chinese central government to promote the development of science and technology in China, quite a few large scientific projects were proposed by the scientific community, among which were Beijing Electron-Positron Collider (BEPC) and Hefei Synchrotron Radiation Light Source (HLS). The major aim of BEPC was for the studies of high energy particle physics with a parasitic synchrotron radiation facility, i.e., the so-called Beijing Synchrotron Radiation Facility (BSRF). It started operation in 1991 and became the first synchrotron radiation facility in China. As a parasitic facility, BSRF operated a few months a year and played an important role in fostering the synchrotron radiation user community in China. The HLS, a dedicated synchrotron radiation facility, came into operation almost at the same time as BSRF. As a lower energy synchrotron radiation facility, it aimed mostly at the applications of synchrotron radiation VUV wavelength range. Both BSRF and HLS were upgraded again due to strong demands from users. The rapid development of synchrotron radiation applications and facilities in the world in the 1980s and early 1990s spurred the great interest of Chinese scientists to build an advanced synchrotron radiation light source. A third generation light source was first proposed in mainland China in 1993 and was later shaped as the Shanghai Synchrotron Radiation Facility (SSRF) in 1995.     

Pure nuclear resonant scattering of synchrotron radiation by a multilayer structure: Theoretical analysis for 169Tm

The possibility of observing pure nuclear resonant scattering of synchrotron radiation by a multilayer structure containing the ¹⁶⁹Tm isotope is analyzed theoretically. The main problem is the need to suppress the enormous background of radiation scattered by electrons. Two methods for the destructive interference of a synchrotron radiation beam in reflection at grazing incidence by a layered system containing Tm nuclei in one of the layers are considered, and their efficiency as applied to the conditions of third-generation synchrotron radiation sources, such as in the European Synchrotron Radiation Facility (ESRF), is calculated. An electron scattering suppression efficiency parameter is formulated as the ratio of the integrated nuclear scattering intensity (with a time delay) to the total prompt electron scattering intensity in assigned ranges of angles and energies. In the first method thin films of a special type on a substrate, viz., GIAR films, are used. In the second method a new effect, which is termed the Bragg antipeak effect and involves the destructive interference of a wave that is Bragg-diffracted in a multilayer superlattice and a wave reflected on the upper boundary of the sample, is employed. The physical properties of the Bragg antipeak effect are considered, and it is found that its efficiency is sufficient for practical use. Zh. éksp. Teor. Fiz. 114, 3–22 (July 1998)     

High pressure experiments with synchrotron radiation

Using a diamond anvil cell (DAC), high pressure ⁵⁷Fe Mössbauer spectroscopy has been performed with the nuclear forward scattering of synchrotron radiation. We used monochromatized synchrotron radiation from an in‐vacuum type undulator as a high‐density strong Mössbauer source with a quite small beam size. Pressure‐induced magnetic hyperfine interactions at ⁵⁷Fe in SrFeO_2.97 has been detected at 74 GPa by a quantum‐beat modulation of the decay rate after collective nuclear excitation with the synchrotron radiation pulse. Evidence for a transition from antiferromagnetism to ferromagnetism of Fe in SrFeO_2.97 at 74 GPa and 300 K has been obtained from the nuclear forward scattering under a transverse magnetic field.     

同步辐射在古陶瓷研究中应用的现状和展望

概述了同步辐射光源的历史和优点,对同步辐射X射线荧光、X射线吸收精细结构、同步辐射X射线衍射等方法在古陶瓷工艺、产地等方面的应用现状进行了总结,并展望了同步辐射在古陶瓷研究中的应用前景.     

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.     

Meeting Report: Third Italian-Australian Workshop on Spectroscopy and Imaging with Synchrotron Radiation

The third Italian-Australian Workshop on Spectroscopy and Imaging with Synchrotron Radiation (IAW) was held at the Australian Synchrotron on April 14, 2007, and was the first scientific meeting held there. Previous workshops have been held in Trieste (2005) and Lorne, Victoria (2003). Indeed, when the first meeting was held, the Australian synchrotron was an idea and now it is a reality.     

XAFS16 at KIT: Five Days of Cutting-Edge X-ray Science in Karlsruhe

The sixteenth international conference on X-ray Absorption Fine Structure, XAFS16, was held August 23–28, 2015, at the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT) in Germany. Since the first such meeting in 1981, the XAFS conference series has become the foremost international meeting covering developments and applications in X-ray absorption spectroscopy. Jointly organized by KIT, DESY (Hamburg), HZB (Berlin), and the European XFEL (Hamburg), under the auspices of the International X-ray Absorption Society (IXAS), the XAFS16 conference hosted over 550 participants (including more than 160 young scientists) from 37 different countries, establishing a new record for the number of participants. The local organization was provided by the KIT institutes INE, IKFT, and ITCP and the ANKA synchrotron facility, with Jan-Dierk Grunwaldt leading the local organizing committee.     

IKNO,a user facility for coherent terahertz and UV synchrotron radiation

IKNO (Innovation and KNOwledge) is a proposal for a multi‐user facility based on an electron storage ring optimized for the generation of coherent synchrotron radiation (CSR) in the terahertz frequency range, and of broadband incoherent synchrotron radiation ranging from the IR to the VUV. IKNO can be operated in an ultra‐stable CSR mode with photon flux in the terahertz frequency region up to nine orders of magnitude higher than in existing third‐generation light sources. Simultaneously to the CSR operation, broadband incoherent synchrotron radiation up to VUV frequencies is available at the beamline ports. The main characteristics of the IKNO storage and its performance in terms of CSR and incoherent synchrotron radiation are described in this paper. The proposed location for the infrastructure facility is Sardinia, Italy.     

Twenty-third MAX-lab User Meeting

The 23^rd Annual User Meeting for MAX-lab users was held at Scandic Star Hotel in Lund, Sweden, on November 8-10, 2010. The meeting was, as in previous years, jointly organized by MAX-lab and the MAX-lab Association for Synchrotron Radiation Users (FASM). From the start in the late 1980s these meetings have grown with the user community of MAX-lab, and with increasing interest in the development of MAX IV, the coming synchrotron radiation facility in Sweden (http://www.maxlab.lu.se/maxlab/max4/index.html.), this growth has accelerated. The last four meetings have hosted around 300 participants, with a new record number of 342 registered participants and 26 commercial exhibitors at this meeting!