Title: Synchrotron Radiation Technology and Applications to Materials Science

Speaker: Prof. Michael Bedzyk (Northwestern University, USA)

Host: Prof. JIANG Xiaoming

Time: 10:00, September 11, 2012

Place: Room C305, IHEP Main Building

Abstract:

World-wide there is a growing number of synchrotron storage rings built for generating high-brightness hard X-ray beams for multi-disciplinary scientific research. Such rings store electron bunches in the 3 to 8 GeV energy range depending on the parameters of the facility. The speaker will start by briefly introducing the following topics: 1) Electron accelerator, storage ring and insertion devise systems used to generate X-rays. 2) Optics for monochromating and focusing the X-ray beams. 3) The basics of X-ray scattering and spectroscopy.

The speaker will then present examples that show how synchrotron X-rays are used to study the atomic-scale structure of various types of interface structures found in materials science research. This will include X-ray reflectivity, X-ray standing wave, and X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy studies of epitaxial graphene and studies of oxide supported monolayer and nanocluster catalysts.

About the speaker:

Michael Bedzyk is a Professor of Materials Science & Engineering and Physics & Astronomy at Northwestern University. He presently serves as chair of Materials Science & Engineering, co-director of the Northwestern Synchrotron Research Center, and was the founding co-chair of the Applied Physics graduate program. He is a Fellow of the American Physical Society and received the Warren Award for Diffraction Physics. His PhD is in Physics from the State University of New York at Albany. Prior to Northwestern he was a staff scientist at synchrotron X-ray facilities located at DESY in Hamburg, Germany and then at Cornell University.

His research uses in situ X-ray scattering and spectroscopy for element-specific atomic-scale studies of interface processes and structures that form between various phases of mater. This presently includes: the diffuse double-layer formation at the liquid-solid interface, DNA-coated Au-nanoparticle assembly at functionalized surfaces, oxide supported metal nanoparticle catalytic redox reactions, membrane and vesicle formation by assembly of amphiphillic molecules in solution, molecular functionalization of epitaxial graphene, strain in complex-oxide heterolayer structures, and Li-ion battery solid-electrolyte interphase layer formation.