From Our Director
The next decade will see a transformation in the capabilities of storage
ring-based synchrotron radiation facilities. The construction of new
synchrotrons, based on multi-bend achromat designs, will lead to significant
increases in transverse x-ray coherence. The investment in high brightness
facilities will enable advances in x-ray imaging, but the emphasis on x-ray
coherence will not advance all x-ray techniques that are critical to discovery
and use-inspired research or in demand by the user community. To review
SSRL's role in this evolving landscape, check out our recently published Strategic Plan.
As we prepare for the triennial review of SSRL by the DOE Office of Basic
Energy Sciences later in May, I want to take a moment to thank you for your
response to our call for user awards, patents, commercialized technology,
invited talks, theses and papers. We appreciate your alerting us about these
accomplishments throughout the year; your prompt reply to our call helps us to
demonstrate the productivity of our facility for this upcoming review. We
sincerely appreciate your input.
Kelly Gaffney
Science Highlights
Multimodal Synchrotron-based Imaging Reveals Novel Effects of
Rehabilitation after Intracerebral Hemorrhage –
Contacts: Michael R. Williamson and Frederick Colbourne, University of
Alberta
An intracerebral hemorrhage (ICH) stroke occurs when a blood vessel bursts
inside the brain and blood leaks into brain tissue. Secondary damage is caused
by hemoglobin iron making free radicals that cause oxidative damage to brain
cells. While prompt rehabilitative therapies have been shown to limit
damage, the mechanism for this is unknown. Read more...
Elucidating the Role of POT1 C-terminal Mutations in Cancer –
Contact: Emmanuel Skordalakes, The Wistar Institute, University of
Pennsylvania
Famous for their role in the process of aging, telomeres are the regions of
repetitive DNA sequences at the ends of our chromosomes. These repeats are
critical for preserving the structure and function of our DNA in concert with
numerous cellular factors. One factor responsible for the regulation and
maintenance of telomere length is the shelterin complex, composed of six
proteins including one called POT1. Read more...
Synergistic Photon Science Developments at SLAC
New Device Produces Hydrogen Peroxide for Water Purification:
Low-cost Device has the Potential to Provide Developing Countries with Clean
Water
Excerpt from March 31, 2017 SLAC News Feature by Jennifer Huber
Limited access to clean water is a major issue for billions of people in the
developing world, where water sources are often contaminated with urban,
industrial and agricultural waste. Many disease-causing organisms and organic
pollutants can be quickly removed from water using hydrogen peroxide without
leaving any harmful residual chemicals. However, producing and distributing
hydrogen peroxide is a challenge in many parts of the world.
Scientists at the SUNCAT Center for Interface Science and Catalysis and
Stanford University, with the help of SSRL staff scientists Dennis Nordlund and
Dimosthenis Sokaras to characterize carbon catalysts using soft x-ray
absorption spectroscopy at Beam Line 8-2, have created a small device for
hydrogen peroxide production that could be powered by renewable energy sources,
like conventional solar panels. Their results were reported March 1 in Reaction Chemistry and Engineering.
“The idea is to develop an electrochemical cell that generates
hydrogen peroxide from oxygen and water on site, and then use that hydrogen
peroxide in groundwater to oxidize organic contaminants that are harmful for
humans to ingest,” said Chris Hahn, a SUNCAT associate staff
scientist.
“Most of the projects here at SUNCAT follow a similar path,”
said Zhihua (Bill) Chen, a graduate student in the group of Tom Jaramillo, an
associate professor at SLAC and Stanford. “They start from predictions
based on theory, move to catalyst development and eventually produce a
prototype device with a practical application.” Read more...
New Theory Institute Aims to Speed Research on Exotic Materials at Light
Sources
Excerpt from April 11, 2017 SLAC News Feature Glennda Chui
A new institute at SLAC is using the power of theory to search for new types
of materials that could revolutionize society – by making it possible,
for instance, to transmit electricity over power lines with no loss. The
Theory Institute for Materials and Energy Spectroscopies (TIMES) opened in
August 2016 as part of the Stanford Institute for Materials and Energy Sciences
(SIMES) and focuses
on improving experimental techniques and speeding the pace of discovery at West
Coast x-ray facilities operated by SLAC and LBNL.
“We’re interested in materials with remarkable properties that
seem to emerge out of nowhere when you arrange them in particular ways or
squeeze them down into a single, two-dimensional layer,” says Thomas
Devereaux, a SLAC Professor of Photon Science who directs both TIMES and
SIMES. This general class of materials is known as “quantum
materials.” Some of the best-known examples are high-temperature
superconductors, which conduct electricity with no loss; topological
insulators, which conduct electricity only along their surfaces; and graphene,
a form of pure carbon whose superior strength, electrical conductivity and
other surprising qualities derive from the fact that it’s just one layer
of atoms thick.
In another research focus, Devereaux says, “We want to see what
happens when you push materials far beyond their resting state – out of
equilibrium, is the way we put it – by exciting them in various ways with
pulses of x-ray light at light source facilities. Read more...
Where Scientist Meets Machine: A Fresh Approach to Experimental Design at
LCLS X-ray Laser
Excerpt from April 26, 2017 SLAC News Feature Glennda Chui
Paul Fuoss, a former Stanford graduate student and recipient of SSRL's
2015 Farrel W. Lytle Award, joins LCLS with the mission of increasing productivity and
improving the scientific experience at LCLS. He will look at LCLS and the
LCLS-II upgrade from a fresh perspective and work with scientists and engineers
across the lab to design instruments, user-friendly control systems and
experimental flows that take full advantage of this technological leap.
For Fuoss, the broader goal is to increase productivity and improve the
experiences of scientists at x-ray light sources everywhere. “Experiments
have gotten a lot more complex over the past 20 years, not just at LCLS but at
synchrotron light sources, too,” he said. “We’ve gone from
controlling experiments with a single computer and detecting a single pixel of
data at a time to using multiple computers and detecting more like a million
pixels at once. Our ability to integrate different tools and computers and
visualize the data has often not kept up with the technology. And at LCLS, that
complexity is going to increase dramatically in a few years when the LCLS-II
upgrade becomes operational.” Read more...
Upcoming Events
SSRL 2017 Summer School on Synchrotron X-ray Absorption Spectroscopy
and Imaging, June 19-23, Menlo Park, CA
Additional information is available at school web portal
canSAS-IX Meeting, June 5-7, 2017, San Francisco, CA
For more information please visit both canSAS and the meeting
website
7th International Conferences on Hard X-ray Photoelectron
Spectroscopy, September 11-15, 2017, Berkeley, CA
Register online or contact the Co-Chairs for more information: Piero
Pianetta (Stanford/SSRL), Chuck Fadley (UC Davis/LBNL) and Zahid Hussain
(LBNL). Conference website
SSRL/LCLS Users' Conference & Workshops, September 27-29,
2017, Menlo Park, CA – Save the Date
Planning is underway for the joint SSRL/LCLS Users' Conference, to be
held at SLAC, September 27-29, 2017. A plenary session with a poster session,
awards and invited speakers is planned for September 28. Parallel workshops
will be planned for September 27 and 29, including:
- Accelerator Performance Developments
- Additive Manufacturing
- Advanced X-ray Spectroscopy at SLAC: From Theory to Experimental
Concepts
- CDI at LCLS
- Detectors for Photon Science
- Feature Extraction for LCLS-II
- First Experiments for LCLS-II (with Update/Introduction to
Instrumentation)
- Hands-on Data Analysis Workshop for LCLS
- Probing Structure and Chemistry of Surfaces Using Hard X-ray
Methods
- New Methods for Room Temperature Crystallography at SSRL and
LCLS-MFX
- Sample Preparation, Characterization & Delivery: From PSLB to
SSRL and LCLS
- Ultrafast Chemistry and Materials Dynamics
- Ultrasensitive Electronic Structure Detection in (Bio)Chemistry and
Catalysis
- Workflow Workshop (including Machine Learning Features)
We anticipate that registration will open at the conference website next month. We look forward to your
feedback and participation!
Announcements
Call for Spicer Young Investigator Award Nominations
Submit nominations for the Spicer Young Investigator Award by July 5,
including a letter of nomination summarizing the technical or scientific
contributions of the candidate, the candidate's curriculum vitae and
publications. Supporting letters are encouraged. All SSRL users and staff are
eligible for this $1,000 award honoring the professional and personal
contributions that William E. and Diane M. Spicer made to our community. For
more information visit the award website.
User Research Administration
SSRL Beam Time Request Deadline
- August 7, 2017 – X-ray/VUV requests for beam time beginning
fall 2017.
SSRL Proposal Deadlines
- June 1, 2017 – X-ray / VUV
- July 1, 2017 – Macromolecular Crystallography
Note: Rapid Access Requests for selected beam lines can be submitted at
any time. Submit proposals and beam time requests through the user portal.
LCLS Proposal Deadline
The Stanford Synchrotron Radiation Lightsource (SSRL) is a third-generation
light source producing extremely bright x-rays for basic and applied
research. SSRL attracts and supports scientists from around the world who
use its state-of-the-art capabilities to make discoveries that benefit society.
SSRL, a U.S. DOE Office of Science national user facility, is a Directorate of
SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory, operated by Stanford University for the
U.S. Department of Energy Office of Science. The SSRL Structural
Molecular Biology Program is supported by the DOE Office of Biological and
Environmental Research, and by the National Institutes of Health, National
Institute of General Medical Sciences. For more information about SSRL science,
operations and schedules, visit http://www-ssrl.slac.stanford.edu.
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Questions? Comments? Contact Lisa Dunn
