Please join us to learn about opportunities for research at the Canadian Light Source from Dr. Ning Chen, Canadian Light Source’s Senior Staff Scientist, Beamline Responsible.
Abstract
The Canadian Light Source (CLS) is Canada’s national and international centre for synchrotron science and its applications. Its third-generation synchrotron provides synchrotron radiation from 0.62 meV in the far-infrared to 100 keV hard X-rays. Nineteen operational beamlines, with two more being commissioned, permit research in material science, physics, chemistry, biological sciences, protein crystallography, medical and life sciences, environmental science, and earth and geological sciences.
As one of the most extensively applied synchrotron techniques, X-ray absorption spectroscopy (XAS) plays a unique role in material sciences. Its element specific local structure probing capability makes possible molecular level understanding of both crystalline and amorphous systems.
Dr. Chen will present the XAS facilities and capabilities specific to CLS’ Hard X-ray MicroAnalysis (HXMA) beamline, which is a wiggler-sourced hard X-ray beamline with an energy coverage of 5–40 keV. Then, he will discuss the element specific local structural probing capability of XAS through XAS case studies, including surface to bulk types of site occupancy for element specific complex, local structural analysis (resolution: ~0.02Å) for the element first shell coordination and the structural beyond through subshell by subshell to bond by bond probing. These case studies will demonstrate that XAS is a very useful tool in the study of energy and material.
In addition, Dr. Chen will discuss two crucial steps to using the full power of XAS for element specific local structural probing: the hypothesis guided pre-project feasibility study and XAS experiment result constrained post-experimental theoretical modelling. XAS theoretical modelling user support is uniquely provided at HXMA.
Biographical Sketch
Dr. Ning Chen’s job at CLS requires him to maintain the hard X-ray XAFS facility as a leading center of excellence in synchrotron XAFS research, develop its user community at HXMA, and promote XAFS in Canada and internationally.
He has been involved in this work for many years. Since 2013, he has presented more than 40 invited synchrotron lectures and organized and taught 27 mini-XAS workshops. Dr. Ning Chen has also been significantly involved in the supervision and training of HQP, particularly for many graduate-student XAFS users and visiting scientists. Dr. Chen has directed, participated in and collaborated on many scientific and industrial user projects. To fulfill this duty, he has been appointed to five adjunct professor positions throughout Canada and China.