Synchrotron techniques

Light source 101

For the ALS User Meeting, Fanny Rodolakis and Monika Blum organized a new edition of the Light Source 101 workshop, where beamline scientists from the Advanced Light Source explain their science. Luckily, these talks where recorded (they are available as bulk here), and I have edited them in sizeable, 30-min chunks about most of the cool techniques we offer.

• A tour of the Advanced Light Source

• ALS Proposal User Guide

• “The Machine” (Ring-based synchrotron Light Sources)

• ALS Soft X-Ray XAS and RIXS

• Scanning Transmission X-Ray Microscopy

• Resonant X-Ray Scattering

• X-Ray Diffraction at non-ambient conditions

• Synchrotron Infrared, What is it good for?

• Micro Computed Tomography

• XPEEM LS101 (X-Ray Photo-Emission Electron Microscopy)

• ARPES@ALS 101 (Angle-Resolved Photo-Emission Spectroscopy)

• XPCS (X-Ray Photon Correlation Spectroscopy)

Coherent techniques

The videos of the workshop on Coherence: The New Wave are available on youtube:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Nj7lkqrdiQ&list=PLJ_G31LpdW7R2Th3p28FHRgVWn-jGzAiu

Mechanical engineering for x-ray optics

There is a trove of information from the MEDSI School available here:

https://medsi.lbl.gov/engineering-schools/diamond-eces-2018

Books and references on synchrotron radiation

If you’re interested in learning about how synchrotrons themselves work, either because you’re working on a beamline and want to understand better of the magic works or because you’re about to build new beamlines for fourth generation synchrotrons, here’s a few book I recommend on the topic (with links to the Berkeley library if they exist, in case you happen to have access):

• The Science and Technology of Undulators and Wigglers – James Clarke, 2007 (Berkeley Library full access)

• Undulators, Wigglers and Their Applications – P. Elleaume 2020 (no Berkeley access)

• Gratings, Mirrors and Slits: Beamline Design for Soft X-Ray – W.B Peatman, 1997 (Berkeley Library full access)

• Soft X-Rays and Extreme Ultraviolet Radiation – David Attwood, 2012 (Berkeley Library full access)

• Elements of Modern X-ray Physics –Jens Als-Nielsen, 2011 (Berkeley Library full access)

I found all these book interesting and complementary (I would rather read the Clarke over the Elleaume, and the Attwood over the Als-Nielsen, but perhaps because I deal with softer x-rays.)

For the interested reader, it might also be useful to look at how things work in electron microscopy. A good reference would be this one:

• Transmission Electron Microscopy – Ludwig Reimer, 2008 (Berkeley Library full access)

To get started, I recommend going through the free course by Philip Wilmott from PSI on EdX: Synchrotrons and X-Ray Free Electron Lasers. It is pretty comprehensive and covers a lot of the basis of x-ray science; it’s basically a boiled down version of the companion book “An Introduction to Synchrotron Radiation: Techniques and Applications” he wrote in 2011. This would take probably a week full-time, but you can probably stretch them over a few month if you’re not into binge watch (but it is probably as captivating as the Queen’s Gambit.)

To mention also: if you’re a grad student working with synchrotrons, I would recommend applying for the three-week National School on Neutron and X-ray Scattering, generally at Argonne National Lab in the summer, but online this time around. I’m not sure if they will increase their cap of 60 participants.

Other online resources

ESRF Online seminars

I find that the European Synchrotron Radiation Facility Youtube channel offers a bunch of great talks on state-of-the art x-ray science (more in hard x-rays, but extremely cool nonetheless.)

Global XAS Journal Club

The Global XAS Journal Club Youtube channel has a very interesting content on topics related to X-Ray Absorption Spectroscopy, one of the most active group I am aware of.