Synchrotrons and X-Ray Free Electron Lasers (part 2)

Are you interested in investigating materials and their properties with unsurpassed accuracy and fidelity? Synchrotrons and XFELs count as Science’s premier microscopic tool in scientific endeavours as diverse as molecular biology, environmental science, cultural heritage, catalytical chemistry, and the electronic properties of novel materials, to name but a few examples.

This second of two sister courses is pitched at a level to provide valuable insights to a scientifically diverse audience into the broad spectrum of methods that use synchrotrons, including diffraction and elastic scattering; absorption, fluorescence, and photoelectron spectroscopies; and various imaging techniques, including tomography, coherent lensless imaging, and ptychography.

Week 1: Diffraction and scattering basics and theory

Introduction, including examples; basic concepts in crystallography, elastic scattering, and diffraction including the phase problem and how this can be resolved. New approaches in macromolecular crystallography, including artificial intelligence/machine learning.

Week 2: Diffraction techniques

Single-crystal diffraction (Laue method and rotation method), powder diffraction, surface diffraction, small-angle x-ray scattering. x-ray reflectometry.

Week 3: Aspects of x-ray spectroscopy theory and absorption spectroscopy

Energy levels, bonding, energy bands, selection rules for dipole transitions, Fermi's Golden rule. Absorption techniques, including XANES, STXM, PEEM, and EXAFS.

Week 4: X-ray emission spectroscopies and electron spectroscopies

X-ray fluorescence, resonant inelastic x-ray scattering, x-ray photoelectron spectroscopy ambient-pressure XPS, x-ray photoelectron diffraction, angle-resolved photoelectron spectroscopy, hard x-ray variants of photoelectron spectroscopies.

Week 5: Tomography and other full-field x-ray microscopies

X-ray tomography basics, including back projections, Radon transforms, and the Fourier slice theorem. Practical considerations. Phase-contrast tomography. Fast tomography. Dark-field and Zernike microscopies.

Week 6: Lensless imaging and x-ray photon correlation spectroscopy

Speckle. coherent x-ray diffractive imaging, ptychographic tomography and laminography. Higher-dimensional imaging. X-ray photon correlation spectroscopy.