From the Science Director
As we announced in the January 2019 issue of SSRL Headline News, Kelly
Gaffney steps down as SSRL Director on March 31, 2019 to become the Chemical
Sciences Division Director at SLAC (a role he actually assumed on February
1). Piero Pianetta is stepping in as SSRL Director through June 30, at
which point the baton is handed to Paul McIntyre. SSRL Management wants
to express our sincere appreciation and thanks to Kelly for his leadership,
wishing him success in his new responsibilities, and looks forward to
interacting with him as a scientific collaborator and SSRL user in the
future.
Science
Highlights
Ni-rich Layered Cathode Particle’s Response to Aggressive
Charging at High Voltage Revealed by Machine Learning –
Contacts: Yijin Liu (SSRL) and Enyuan Hu (BNL)
The expanded use of renewable energies instead of fossil fuels depends on
developing better batteries. Researchers are finding ways to make batteries
store more energy, have more efficient output, and last longer at lower cost.
In order to properly function in applications that demand high energy and power
density, like electric automobiles, the loss of storage capacity in lithium ion
batteries during high-voltage charging and discharging cycles needs to be
mitigated. Scientists from SSRL and BNL studied nickel-rich layered materials
(NMC) used as cathodes in high energy density lithium-ion batteries to
understand why they lose capacity during high-voltage cycling. Read more...
See also: Brookhaven Newsroom: Cause of Cathode Degradation Identified
for Nickel-rich Materials
Doubling the DNA Alphabet: Implications for Life in the Universe and
DNA Storage – Contacts: Steven Benner (Foundation for
Applied Molecular Evolution) and Millie Georgiadis (Indiana University School
of Medicine)
Our genetic information is stored in DNA using just four nucleotide bases:
A, C, G, and T. While we may never understand how these particular molecular
combinations came to store the instructions for all life on Earth, we can
address some questions about their role, such as: are these the only four bases
that could create a DNA double helix with the right balance of stability and
flexibility for cells to store and access genetic information? A team of
scientists answered this question by introducing four new, synthetic bases into
DNA, forming “hachimoji DNA,” named using the Japanese words for
eight letters. Read more...
New Video Releases
3D Printing for Perfect Metal Parts
March 26, 2019 SLAC Public Lecture by Chris Tassone
3-D printing is a fundamentally new way of manufacturing things, building
them up layer by layer rather than by carving or molding materials. This
can allow us to create exceptionally complex metal parts on demand, make
faster, lighter vehicles, prototype new technologies and even build habitats on
distant planets. But to make it work, the structure of the printed metal has to
be reliably strong and uniform at the microscopic and even the atomic scale.
Achieving this high level of precision and control will require a solid
understanding of exactly what is happening to the microstructure of a printed
part as it is being created. In this SLAC Public Lecture, Chris Tassone talks
about tools for looking beneath the surface of metal additive manufacturing,
understanding the physics involved and controlling the physics to create metal
components of the future. See video
Making Science Happen
“Making Science Happen” tells a story about the bold people
behind the science at SLAC. It gives the outside world a glimpse into the inner
world of our lab: the expertise, creativity and enthusiasm that enables us to
do great things together. See video
Meeting Summary
Workshop on Resonant Inelastic X-ray Scattering with Hard X-rays
February 20-22, 2019
The hard x-ray spectroscopy group at SSRL organized a summer school on hard
x-ray resonant inelastic x-ray scattering (RIXS) from February 20-22, 2019.
This workshop on the fundamental aspects of hard x-ray RIXS included lectures
and tutorials from basic to more advanced levels. Hard x-ray RIXS is a powerful
spectroscopic tool due to the two-dimensional data planes, the high resolution
in the energy transfer direction and the large penetration depth of the
x-rays.
SSRL-Related News
The Children’s Museum of Indianapolis announced plans this week for
Mission Jurassic, a project that will support paleontological excavation of a
fossil-rich plot of land in northern Wyoming. The project will bring together
scientists from around the world, including SLAC, SSRL and the University of
Manchester, to reveal dramatic new secrets about the world of millions of years
ago. Read more...
Events
Time- and Space-Resolved X-ray Absorption Spectroscopy (XAS) at
SSRL: Analysis of Large Data Sets, June 3-4, 2019
Save the dates, June 3-4, to participate in this short course sponsored by
Co-ACCESS at SSRL. As SSRL transitions from step-scanning XAS to continuous and
quick scanning (QEXAFS), time resolution will improve from 10 minutes per
spectrum to below 1 second, meaning that the number of spectra that will need
to be analyzed will increase dramatically. A similar situation already exists
with space-resolved data in x-ray microscopy where thousands and sometimes even
millions of spectra need to be processed. With these new parameters, we need
appropriate software to process these data batches and extract time- and
space-resolved chemical information. This course will present examples of large
XAS data sets and solutions for their batch processing, including hands-on
exercises. The future in correlated data collection and analysis will also be
discussed. A website with registration details will be announced shortly.
Stanford-SLAC Cryo-EM Center (S2C2) Workshop
Series website
U.S. Particle Accelerator School June 17-28, 2019 website
Joint SSRL/LCLS Users’ Conference September 25-27,
2019
EMSL Integration 2019 – Plants, Soil and Aerosols:
Interactions that tell stories of Ecosystems, Climate and National
Security” October 8-10, 2019 announcement
User Research Administration
Beam Time Requests
- April 18, 2019 – Macromolecular Crystallography (June - July
scheduling)
The schedule and beam time assignments for most SSRL X-ray/VUV beam lines
through July 29, 2019 is now available through the user portal.
Log into the user portal to view/accept beam time assignments or to submit beam
time requests for eligible proposals. Users who have already reached the number
of shifts estimated in their original proposal or who want to propose new
experiments should consider submitting new proposals by the posted
deadlines.
Proposal Deadlines
SSRL
- April 1, 2019 – Macromolecular Crystallography
- May 1, 2019 – X-ray / VUV
- July 1, 2019 – Macromolecular Crystallography (standard) and
Multi-Technique Proposals for SAXS, MC and Cryo-EM
See SSRL Proposal & Scheduling Guidelines
Cryo-EM
- June 1, 2019 – Stanford-SLAC Cryo-EM Center
(S2C2) Program (see Project Application and Training)
- July 1, 2019 – Multi-Technique Proposals for SAXS, MC and
Cryo-EM
Submit proposals through the User
Portal.
_____________________________________________________________________
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
