Category: National Synchrotron Light Source II (NSLS II)

Perfecting the View on a Crystal’s Imperfection

Perfecting the View on a Crystal’s Imperfection

New research shines light on the properties and promise of hexagonal boron nitride, a material used in electronic and photonics technologies

EW YORK — Single-photon emitters (SPEs) are akin to microscopic lightbulbs that emit only one photon (a quantum of light) at a time. These tiny structures hold immense importance for the development of quantum technology, particularly in applications such as secure communications and high-resolution imaging. However, many materials that contain SPEs are impractical for use in mass manufacturing due to their high cost and the difficulty of integrating them into complex devices.

In 2015, scientists discovered SPEs within a material called hexagonal boron nitride (hBN). Since then, hBN has gained widespread attention and application across various quantum fields and technologies, including sensors, imaging, cryptography, and computing, thanks to its layered structure and ease of manipulation.

The emergence of SPEs within hBN stems from imperfections in the material’s crystal structure, but the precise mechanisms governing their development and function have remained elusive. Now, a new study published in Nature Materials reveals significant insights into the properties of hBN, offering a solution to discrepancies in previous research on the proposed origins of SPEs within the material. The study involves a collaborative effort spanning three major institutions: the Advanced Science Research Center at the CUNY Graduate Center (CUNY ASRC); the National Synchrotron Light Source II (NSLS-II) user facility at Brookhaven National Laboratory; and the National Institute for Materials Science. Gabriele Grosso, a professor with the CUNY ASRC’s Photonics Initiative and the CUNY Graduate Center’s Physics program, and Jonathan Pelliciari, a beamline scientist at NSLS-II, led the study.

The collaboration was sparked by a conversation at the annual NSLS-II and Center for Functional Nanomaterials Users’ Meeting when researchers from CUNY ASRC and NSLS-II realized how their unique expertise, skills, and resources could uncover some novel insights, sparking the idea for the hBN experiment. The work brought together physicists with diverse areas of expertise and instrumentation skillsets who rarely collaborate in such a close manner.

Using advanced techniques based on X-ray scattering and optical spectroscopy, the research team uncovered a fundamental energy excitation occurring at 285 millielectron volts. This excitation triggers the generation of harmonic electronic states that give rise to single photons — similar to how musical harmonics produce notes across multiple octaves.

Read more on BNL website

Image: NSLS-II scientists Jiemin Li, Valentina Bisogni, Shiyu Fan, and Jonathan Pelliciari at the SIX beamline

Credit: Kevin Coughlin/Brookhaven National Laboratory

Super Strong Magnetic Fields Leave Imprint on Nuclear Matter

Super Strong Magnetic Fields Leave Imprint on Nuclear Matter

Data from heavy ion collisions give new insight into electromagnetic properties of quark-gluon plasma

UPTON, NY—A new analysis by the STAR collaboration at the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC), a particle collider at the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Brookhaven National Laboratory, provides the first direct evidence of the imprint left by what may be the universe’s most powerful magnetic fields on “deconfined” nuclear matter. The evidence comes from measuring the way differently charged particles separate when emerging from collisions of atomic nuclei at this DOE Office of Science user facility.

As described in the journal Physical Review X, the data indicate that powerful magnetic fields generated in off-center collisions induce an electric current in the quarks and gluons set free, or deconfined, from protons and neutrons by the particle smashups. The findings give scientists a new way to study the electrical conductivity of this “quark-gluon plasma” (QGP) to learn more about these fundamental building blocks of atomic nuclei.

“This is the first measurement of how the magnetic field interacts with the quark-gluon plasma (QGP),” said Diyu Shen, a STAR physicist from Fudan University in China and a leader of the new analysis. In fact, measuring the impact of that interaction provides direct evidence that these powerful magnetic fields exist.

More powerful than a neutron star

Scientists have long believed that off-center collisions of heavy atomic nuclei such as gold, also known as heavy ions, would generate powerful magnetic fields. That’s because some of the non-colliding positively charged protons—and neutral neutrons—that make up the nuclei would be set aswirl as the ions sideswipe one another at close to the speed of light.

“Those fast-moving positive charges should generate a very strong magnetic field, predicted to be 1018 gauss,” said Gang Wang, a STAR physicist from the University of California, Los Angeles. For comparison, he noted that neutron stars, the densest objects in the universe, have fields of about 1014 gauss, while refrigerator magnets produce a field of about 100 gauss and our home planet’s protective magnetic field measures a mere 0.5 gauss. “This is probably the strongest magnetic field in our universe.”

But because things happen very quickly in heavy ion collisions, the field doesn’t last long. It dissipates in less than 10-23 seconds—ten millionths of a billionth of a billionth of a second—making it difficult to observe.

So instead of trying to measure the field directly, the STAR scientists looked for evidence of its impact on the particles streaming out of the collisions.

“Specifically, we were looking at the collective motion of charged particles,” Wang said.

Read more on BNL website

Image: Collisions of heavy ions generate an immensely strong electromagnetic field. Scientists investigate traces of this powerful electromagnetic field in the quark-gluon plasma (QGP), a state where quarks and gluons are liberated from the colliding protons and neutrons.

Credit: Tiffany Bowman and Jen Abramowitz/Brookhaven National Laboratory

Magnesium Protects Tantalum

Magnesium Protects Tantalum

UPTON, NY—Scientists at the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Brookhaven National Laboratory have discovered that adding a layer of magnesium improves the properties of tantalum, a superconducting material that shows great promise for building qubits, the basis of quantum computers. As described in a paper just published in the journal Advanced Materials, a thin layer of magnesium keeps tantalum from oxidizing, improves its purity, and raises the temperature at which it operates as a superconductor. All three may increase tantalum’s ability to hold onto quantum information in qubits.

This work builds on earlier studies in which a team from Brookhaven’s Center for Functional Nanomaterials (CFN), Brookhaven’s National Synchrotron Light Source II (NSLS-II), and Princeton University sought to understand the tantalizing characteristics of tantalum, and then worked with scientists in Brookhaven’s Condensed Matter Physics & Materials Science (CMPMS) Department and theorists at DOE’s Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL) to reveal details about how the material oxidizes.

Those studies showed why oxidation is an issue.

“When oxygen reacts with tantalum, it forms an amorphous insulating layer that saps tiny bits of energy from the current moving through the tantalum lattice. That energy loss disrupts quantum coherence—the material’s ability to hold onto quantum information in a coherent state,” explained CFN scientist Mingzhao Liu, a lead author on the earlier studies and the new work.

While the oxidation of tantalum is usually self-limiting—a key reason for its relatively long coherence time—the team wanted to explore strategies to further restrain oxidation to see if they could improve the material’s performance.

“The reason tantalum oxidizes is that you have to handle it in air and the oxygen in air will react with the surface,” Liu explained. “So, as chemists, can we do something to stop that process? One strategy is to find something to cover it up.”

All this work is being carried out as part of the Co-design Center for Quantum Advantage (C2QA), a Brookhaven-led national quantum information science research center. While ongoing studies explore different kinds of cover materials, the new paper describes a promising first approach: coating the tantalum with a thin layer of magnesium.

Read more on BNL website

Image: Chenyu Zhou, a research associate in the Center for Functional Nanomaterials (CFN) at Brookhaven National Laboratory and first author on the study, with Mingzhao Liu (CFN), Yimei Zhu (CMPMS), and Junsik Mun (CFN and CMPMSD), at the DynaCool Physical Property Measurement System (PPMS) in CFN. The team used this tool to make tantalum thin films with and without a protective magnesium layer so they could determine whether the magnesium coating would minimize tantalum oxidation.

Credit: Jessica Rotkiewicz/Brookhaven National Laboratory

Team engineers nanoparticles using ion irradiation to advance clean energy and fuel conversion

Team engineers nanoparticles using ion irradiation to advance clean energy and fuel conversion

The work demonstrates control over key properties leading to better performance.

The following feature story was originally issued by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). Adrian Hunt and Iradwikanari Waluyo helped reveal the electronic structure in the surface and bulk of  these nanoparticles using depth-sensitive soft x-ray absorption spectroscopy (XAS) performed at the In situ and Operando Soft X-ray Spectroscopy (IOS) beamline at the National Synchrotron Light Source II (NSLS-II), a U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) Office of Science User Facility at DOE’s Brookhaven National Laboratory. For more information on Brookhaven’s role in this research, contact Denise Yazak (dyazak@bnl.gov, 631-344-6371).

MIT researchers and colleagues have demonstrated a way to precisely control the size, composition, and other properties of nanoparticles key to the reactions involved in a variety of clean energy and environmental technologies. They did so by leveraging ion irradiation, a technique in which beams of charged particles bombard a material.

They went on to show that nanoparticles created this way have superior performance over their conventionally made counterparts.

“The materials we have worked on could advance several technologies, from fuel cells to generate CO2-free electricity to the production of clean hydrogen feedstocks for the chemical industry [through electrolysis cells],” says Bilge Yildiz, leader of the work and a professor in MIT’s departments of Nuclear Science and Engineering and Materials Science and Engineering.

Read more on the BNL website

Image: Artist’s representation of nanoparticles with different compositions created by combining two techniques: metal exsolution and ion irradiation. The different colors represent different elements, such as nickel, that can be implanted into an exsolved metal particle to tailor the particle’s compositions and reactivity.

Credit: Jiayue Wang

Meet Xiaoqian Chen, NSLS-II Beamline Scientist

Meet Xiaoqian Chen, NSLS-II Beamline Scientist

Xiao leads the quantum materials program at NSLS-II’s Coherent Hard X-Ray Scattering beamline

You’ve already spent a few years at Brookhaven, starting in 2016. What brought you back to the Laboratory?

My history with the Laboratory goes back to when I was a user at the original National Synchrotron Light Source (NSLS). I was in graduate school, and my group had our own beamline at NSLS, X1B. I was the person maintaining that beamline, so I came to know many people here.

When I became a postdoc, I decided to join the x-ray scattering group in Brookhaven’s Condensed Matter Physics & Materials Science Department because we shared the same research interests and coherent x-ray science was emerging. I joined when the Coherent Soft X-ray Scattering (CSX) beamline at NSLS-II had just achieved first light. I was able to participate in the first experiments there, and that was my postdoc work.

I then took a postdoc position at DOE’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and worked more on coherent x-ray science. After three years, I was offered a position at CHX to lead the quantum materials program.

What does your role at CHX entail? What kind of research do you do?

My research, in a broad sense, is in the field of condensed matter physics, looking at quantum materials. These are materials that have behaviors that are very heavily guided by quantum mechanical effects. For example, some have superconducting properties, and some have interesting magnetism. With help from my postdoc, I am looking into discovering new quantum effects in materials, and our work is supported by a Laboratory Directed Research and Development (LDRD) grant. Apart from my own research, I prepare an environment at CHX for scientists in our community to perform coherent x-ray experiments and study dynamical properties in their materials.

At CHX, we use coherent x-ray photons to track the dynamics inside materials. We can detect electron dynamics as fast as the nanosecond time scale with our recent detector installation. I’m currently trying to detect and study dynamics in materials that take place at that time scale. The ultimate goal is to find a signature of quantum entanglement. This property is a specific type of interaction between electrons; they show very different behavior from electrons in classical materials.

There are some other new capabilities that we are excited for users to experience. We have added a resonance scattering capability to look at element-specific information. For example, we can look at electrons in specific orbitals. We also added low temperature capability with a new cryostat that can chill samples to 4K. That’s very cold, and it will be very useful for studying quantum materials.

Read more on the NSLS-II website

Image: Xiaoqian Chen is a physicist and beamline scientist with the complex scattering program at the National Synchrotron Light Source II (NSLS-II), a U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) Office of Science User Facility at DOE’s Brookhaven National Laboratory. At NSLS-II’s Coherent Hard X-ray Scattering (CHX) beamline, she studies materials with quantum behaviors and guides users in their investigations into quantum materials.

Keeping Water-Treatment Membranes from Fouling Out

Keeping Water-Treatment Membranes from Fouling Out

When you use a membrane for water treatment, junk builds up on the membrane surface—a process called fouling—which makes the treatment less efficient. In this work, researchers studied how membranes are fouled by interactions between natural organic matter and positively charged ions (such as calcium cations) that are commonly found in water from dissolved minerals and salts.

“Fouling has been studied since membranes emerged for use in water purification decades ago, but it still remains one of the largest challenges in water treatment,” said the study’s first author, Matthew Landsman, an ALS collaborative postdoctoral fellow from the University of Texas at Austin’s Center for Materials for Water and Energy Systems (M-WET), a DOE Energy Frontier Research Center (EFRC). “Our research aimed to understand the molecular-level mechanisms that influence membrane fouling by natural organic matter so that we can establish design rules for making better membranes.”

After running laboratory fouling experiments on membranes at UT Austin, the team used synchrotron characterization techniques at the Advanced Light Source (ALS) and Brookhaven’s National Synchrotron Light Source II (NSLS-II) to analyze the surface and bulk compositions of the fouled membranes. At ALS Beamline 7.3.3, wide angle x-ray scattering (WAXS) was used to see if any inorganic contaminants, such as calcium carbonate, were precipitating on the membranes. At NSLS-II, soft and tender x-ray scattering experiments determined the distribution of calcium in the fouling layers.

Read more on the BNL website

Image: Top: Water-treatment facilities use arrays of cylindrical elements containing rolled-up membranes to filter contaminants from water. Bottom inset: In this experiment, such membranes were used to filter water containing ions (reddish spheres) and natural organic matter (green-brown blobs). The fouled membranes were analyzed using various x-ray probes, revealing (for example) how calcium cations form bridges between organic molecules, causing them to aggregate and reduce flow through the membrane.

The problems with coal ash start smaller than anyone thought

The problems with coal ash start smaller than anyone thought

How well toxic elements leach out of coal ash depends on the ash’s nanoscale composition

Everyone knows that burning coal causes air pollution that is harmful to the climate and human health. But the ash left over can often be harmful as well.

For example, Duke Energy long stored a liquified form of coal ash in 36 large ponds across the Carolinas. That all changed in 2014, when a spill at its Dan River site released 27 million gallons of ash pond water into the local environment. The incident raised concerns about the dangers associated with even trace amounts of toxic elements like arsenic and selenium in the ash. Little was known, however, about just how much of these hazardous materials were present in the ash water or how easily they could contaminate the surrounding environment.

Fears of future spills and seepage caused Duke Energy to agree to pay $1.1 billion to decommission most of its coal ash ponds over the coming years. Meanwhile, researchers are working on better ways of putting the ash to use, such as recycling it to recover valuable rare earth elements or incorporating it into building materials such as concrete. But to put any potential solution into action, researchers still must know which sources of coal ash pose a hazardous risk due to its chemical makeup — a question that scientists still struggle to answer.

In a new paper published June 6 in the journal Environmental Science: Nano, researchers at Duke University have discovered that these answers may remain elusive because nobody is thinking small enough. Using one of the newest, most advanced synchrotron light sources in the world — the National Synchrotron Light Source II at Brookhaven National Laboratory — the authors show that, at least for selenium and arsenic, the amount of toxic elements able to escape from coal ash depends largely on their nanoscale structures.

Read more on the BNL website

Image: Leftover sludge from the 2008 coal ash spill at the Kingston TVA power plant. New research indicates that the nanoscale structure of the coal ash plays a large part in whether or not toxic chemicals can leach into the environment from such events

JoAnne Hewett Named Director of Brookhaven National Laboratory

JoAnne Hewett Named Director of Brookhaven National Laboratory

The Board of Directors of Brookhaven Science Associates (BSA) has named theoretical physicist JoAnne Hewett as the next director of the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Brookhaven National Laboratory and BSA president. BSA, a partnership between Stony Brook University (SBU) and Battelle, manages and operates Brookhaven Lab for DOE’s Office of Science. Hewett will also hold the title of professor in SBU’s Department of Physics and Astronomy and professor at SBU’s C.N. Yang Institute for Theoretical Physics.

“JoAnne has a strong research background and extensive experience as a scientist and leader,” said DOE Office of Science Director Asmeret Asefaw Berhe. “She is a great choice to advance the Department of Energy’s priorities at Brookhaven—from fundamental breakthroughs to applications that improve people’s lives each and every day.”

Hewett’s appointment comes after an international search that began in summer 2022. Current Brookhaven Lab Director Doon Gibbs announced in March 2022 his plans to step down after leading the Laboratory for nearly a decade.

Hewett comes to Brookhaven from SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory in Menlo Park, CA, where she most recently served as associate lab director (ALD) for fundamental physics and chief research officer. She also is a professor of particle physics and astrophysics at SLAC/Stanford University.

“JoAnne brings vital experience and proven leadership skills to further Brookhaven Lab’s game-changing discoveries and innovative breakthroughs that benefit science and society,” said Maurie McInnis, president, Stony Brook University, and co-chair, BSA Board of Directors. “As Brookhaven advances major projects, expands its mission, and further modernizes its campus where scientists are solving the most urgent challenges of our time, we are pleased to welcome her as the Lab’s next director.”

Read more on the BNL website

Image: JoAnne Hewett 

Credit: SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory

Building Particle Accelerators Takes More Than a Village

Building Particle Accelerators Takes More Than a Village

From magnets to power supplies, NSLS-II experts support accelerator upgrades across the Nation.

Each year, thousands of people travel far and wide to see architectural marvels such as the towering steps of the Kukulcán temple in in Chichen Itza or the intricate facade of the Cologne Cathedral in Germany. Like these marvels of history and culture, thousands of researchers travel to the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE’s) five light source facilities each year. They don’t come for the views, though, they come to push the boundaries of science—in fields ranging from batteries to pharmaceuticals—by using the ultrabright synchrotron light, mostly x-rays, from these facilities to conduct experiments.

This light doesn’t just appear out of nowhere. It needs to be generated by large, complex particle accelerators. And, to keep the x-rays as bright as possible, scientists and engineers are working constantly to advance them. This story highlights ongoing collaborative projects of the Accelerator Division at the National Synchrotron Light Source II (NSLS-II), located at DOE’s Brookhaven Lab.

According to historical sources, it took the Germans over 600 years to build the original Cologne Cathedral, while archeologists speculate that the Temple of Kukulcán took at least 200 years to build in two phases. Thousands of people worked on these monuments during these extremely long construction periods. This is a feat they share with modern particle accelerator projects. While the initial construction of NSLS-II took only a decade, it still involved an international effort of hundreds of people from many disciplines and professions.

From the civil engineering challenges of the building design to the construction of the hundreds of magnets inside the accelerator, it truly takes more than a village to build a particle accelerator for a synchrotron light source. Similarly, many modern accelerator projects span multiple institutions and countries to leverage the expertise in the field.

Read more on the Brookhaven National Laboratory (NBL)

Image: The photo shows a view of the National Synchrotron Light Source II (NSLS-II) accelerator tunnel located at the U.S. Department of Energy’s Office of Science Brookhaven National Laboratory.

Revealing the thermal heat dance of magnetic domains

Revealing the thermal heat dance of magnetic domains

Scientists invented a new way of tracking electronic properties inside materials, and used it to visualize magnetic domains in a previously unseen way.

Everyone knows that holding two magnets together will lead to one of two results: they stick together, or they push each other apart. From this perspective, magnetism seems simple, but scientists have struggled for decades to really understand how magnetism behaves on the smallest scales. On the near-atomic level, magnetism is made of many ever-shifting kingdoms—called magnetic domains—that create the magnetic properties of the material. While scientists know these domains exist, they are still looking for the reasons behind this behavior.

Now, a collaboration led by scientists from the U.S. Department of Energy’s Brookhaven National Laboratory, Helmholtz-Zentrum Berlin (HZB), the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), and the Max Born Institute (MBI) published a study in Nature in which they used a novel analysis technique—called coherent correlation imaging (CCI)—to image the evolution of magnetic domains in time and space without any previous knowledge. The scientists could not see the “dance of the domains” during the measurement but only afterward, when they used the recorded data to “rewind the tape.”

The “movie” of the domains shows how the boundaries of these domains shift back and forth in some areas but stay constant in others. The researchers attribute this behavior to a property of the material called “pinning.” While pinning is a known property of magnetic materials, the team could directly image for the first time how a network of pinning sites affects the motion of interconnected domain walls.

“Many details about the changes in magnetic materials are only accessible through direct imaging, which we couldn’t do until now. It’s basically a dream come true for studying magnetic motion in materials,” said Wen Hu, scientist at the National Synchrotron Light Source II (NSLS-II) and co-corresponding author of the study.

Read more on the Brookhaven National Laboratory website

Image: The image shows the areas where the borders of magnetic domains accumulate over time. It is similar to a photo of a traffic intersection taken at night with a long exposure time. In such a photo, we would see brighter areas along the paths that most cars’ headlights traveled. Here we see brighter areas where most domain walls come together.

DOE funds pilot study focused on biosecurity for bioenergy crops

DOE funds pilot study focused on biosecurity for bioenergy crops

Research into threats from pathogens and pests would speed short-term response and spark long-term mitigation strategies

The U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Office of Science has selected Brookhaven National Laboratory to lead a new research effort focused on potential threats to crops grown for bioenergy production. Understanding how such bioenergy crops could be harmed by known or new pests or pathogens could help speed the development of rapid responses to mitigate damage and longer-term strategies for preventing such harm. The pilot project could evolve into a broader basic science capability to help ensure the development of resilient and sustainable bioenergy crops as part of a transition to a net-zero carbon economy.

The idea is modeled on the way DOE’s National Virtual Biotechnology Laboratory (NVBL) pooled basic science capabilities to address the COVID-19 pandemic. With $5 Million in initial funding, allocated over the next two years, Brookhaven Lab and its partners will develop a coordinated approach for addressing biosecurity challenges. This pilot study will lead to a roadmap for building out a DOE-wide capability known as the National Virtual Biosecurity for Bioenergy Crops Center (NVBBCC).

“A robust biosecurity capability optimized to respond rapidly to biological threats to bioenergy crops requires an integrated and versatile platform,” said Martin Schoonen, Brookhaven Lab’s Associate Laboratory Director for Environment, Biology, Nuclear Science & Nonproliferation, who will serve as principal investigator for the pilot project. “With this initial funding, we’ll develop a bio-preparedness platform for sampling and detecting threats, predicting how they might propagate, and understanding how pests or pathogens interact with bioenergy crops at the molecular level—all of which are essential for developing short-term control measures and long-term solutions.”

Read more on the Brookhaven National Laboratory website

Image: Pilot study on an important disease in sorghum (above) will develop understanding of threats to bioenergy crops, potentially speeding the development of short-term responses and long-term mitigation strategies

Credit: US Department of Energy Genomic Science Program

Computer, Is My Experiment Finished?

Computer, Is My Experiment Finished?

Everyone knows that the Computer—an artificial intelligence (AI)-like entity—on a Star Trek spaceship does everything from brewing tea to compiling complex analyses of flux data. But how are they used at real research facilities? How can AI agents—computer programs that can act based on a perceived environment—help scientists discover next-generation batteries or quantum materials? Three staff members at the National Synchrotron Light Source II (NSLS-II) described how AI agents support scientists using the facility’s research tools. As a U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Office of Science user facility located at DOE’s Brookhaven National Laboratory, NSLS-II offers its experimental capabilities to scientists from all over the world who use it to reveal the mysteries of materials for tomorrow’s technology.

From improving experimental conditions to enhancing data quality, Andi Barbour, Dan Olds, Maksim Rakitin, and their colleagues are working on various AI projects at NSLS-II. A recent overview publication in Digital Discovery outlines several—but not all—ongoing AI projects at the facility.

First contact with AI

While movies often show AI agents as sentient super computers that can perform various tasks, real-world AI agents differ greatly from this portrayal.

“What we mean when we say AI is that we come up with an algorithm or a method—basically some mathematical process—that is going to do a ‘thing’ for us, such as classifying, analyzing, or making decisions, but we’re not going to hardcode the logic,” explained Olds, a physicist who works at one of NSLS-II’s scientific instruments that enables a wide range of research projects. The instruments at NSLS-II are called beamlines because they are a combination of an x-ray beam delivery system and an experimental station.

Rakitin, a physicist specialized in developing software to collect or analyze data at NSLS-II, added, “Instead of giving the program—the AI agent—a model, it builds its own model through training. If we want it to recognize a cat, we show it a cat instead of explaining that it is a furry animal with four legs, pointy ears, a tail, and so on. The program has to figure out how to identify a cat by itself.”

Researchers at facilities such as NSLS-II have two main reasons for adapting AI agents to their needs: the sheer volume of data and its complexity. Twenty years ago, it took several minutes to snap a data image—such as a diffraction pattern—of a battery. Now, at the beamline Olds works at, they can take the same shot in a fraction of a second. While this allows more research to happen at the beamline, it outpaces the traditional strategies used to analyze the data.

Barbour, a chemical physicist, faces the second challenge, complex data, in her work studying dynamics in quantum materials. Together with her collaborators, she investigates how the atomic and electronic order in these materials evolve under variable conditions.

“When we do experiments at the beamline, we are looking for correlations and patterns in the data over time. So, if we would need to write one long program that captures all the possibilities of our experiments, it would be incredibly complicated, hard to read, terrible to maintain, and a nightmare to automate. But an AI tool can learn how to handle our complex data without the need to explain every detail to the agent,” Barbour said.

Read more on the Brookhaven National Laboratory website

Image: From left to right: Andi Barbour, Maksim Rakitin, and Dan Olds on the balcony overseeing the experimental floor of the National Synchrotron Light Source II

NSLS-II Researchers Win 2022 Microscopy Today Innovation Award

NSLS-II Researchers Win 2022 Microscopy Today Innovation Award

The team developed a set of bonded x-ray lenses to overcome a long-standing alignment issue, making nanometer resolution more accessible than ever before.

Scientists at the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Brookhaven National Laboratory received the 2022 Microscopy Today Innovation Award for their development of a system with bonded x-ray lenses that make nanoscale resolution more accessible than ever before. When the team at the National Synchrotron Light Source II (NSLS-II), a DOE Office of Science user facility, tested the new lens system, they achieved a resolution down to approx. 10 nanometers.

“We need technologies of the future to tackle some of society’s biggest challenges — from microelectronics to tiny qubits for quantum computers to longer-lasting batteries,” said John Hill, NSLS-II Director. “However, to develop these new devices, researchers need to study materials at the nanoscale. And this where these new lenses really come into their own. They make focusing hard x-ray beams down to a few nanometers much easier than ever before. By using the very focused x-ray beams that these lenses produce, we can reveal the function, structure, and chemistry of next-generation materials on the nanoscale. This crucial breakthrough was only made possible through years of intense work by experts—who are world-leaders in their respective fields—working together. I am delighted that their work has been recognized by this award and very proud to have this new lens system at NSLS-II.”

Read more on the Brookhaven National Laboratory website

Image: The members of the development team in front of NSLS-II. From left to right: Yong Chu, Hanfei Yan, Weihe Xu, Wei Xu, Xiaojing Huang, Ming Lu, Natalie Bouet, Evgeny Nazaretski. Not pictured: Juan Zhou and Maxim Zalalutdinov.

Ryan Tappero’s #My1stLight

Ryan Tappero’s #My1stLight

Ryan is the XFM Lead Beamline Scientist at NSLS-II on Long Island, New York. His #My1stLight celebrates the night back in 2017 when the beamline succeeded in taking first light! A smiling team AND results. Definitely worth remembering as part of our 75 Years of Science with Synchrotron Light #My1stLight campaign

Read more about NSLS-II’s XFM beamline here

Meet Greg Fries, NSLS-II Accelerator Division Deputy Director for Projects

Meet Greg Fries, NSLS-II Accelerator Division Deputy Director for Projects

Fries plays a key role at NSLS-II, straddling the line between management and workers ‘in the field’ to ensure projects run smoothly and safely

Greg Fries is the deputy director for projects in the accelerator division at National Synchrotron Light Source II (NSLS-II), a U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) Office of Science User Facility located at DOE’s Brookhaven National Laboratory. At NSLS-II, electrons are accelerated to nearly the speed of light and directed into a “storage ring,” where they emit x-rays as they circulate. The x-rays are used to study a huge range of materials and samples, from batteries to potential new pharmaceuticals.

What do you do at NSLS-II?

In this role, I wear many hats. I’m responsible for planning and coordinating the installation and major maintenance activities related to the accelerator. I work closely with the engineers and technicians, as to how to best manage the time that we have during machine shutdowns. I’m also involved in the construction of new beamlines; for example, right now I am responsible for the accelerator infrastructure for the building of the High Energy Engineering X-ray Scattering (HEX) beamline and the NSLS-II Experimental Tools II (NEXT-II) projects. Ultimately, I work with the accelerator division staff to deliver the insertion devices, front ends, and other beamline systems. In addition, I manage the overall staffing plan and budget for the accelerator division.

I am also the work control manager for NSLS-II, supporting both the accelerator and photon divisions. In this role, I help implement work planning and control processes, and train new work control coordinators. A lot of what I do is coordination among groups to make sure that everything runs smoothly.

Right now, I’m also working on the Advanced Light Source upgrade (ALS-U) at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. I manage the budget and schedule for their power supplies and am fully integrated into their team. I’ve also been able to visit many of the other labs, particularly those who are going through upgrades, and be part of those processes. I’ve learned many lessons by being involved in the construction and maintenance of NSLS-II that I’ve been able to share with projects at other labs.

Read more on the BNL website

Image: Greg Fries stands in front of the main entrance of NSLS-II

Credit: Brookhaven National Laboratory

Hidden distortions trigger promising thermoelectric property

Hidden distortions trigger promising thermoelectric property

Study describes new mechanism for lowering thermal conductivity to aid search for materials that convert heat to electricity or electricity to heat

In a world of materials that normally expand upon heating, one that shrinks along one 3D axis while expanding along another stands out. That’s especially true when the unusual shrinkage is linked to a property important for thermoelectric devices, which convert heat to electricity or electricity to heat.

In a paper just published in the journal Advanced Materials, a team of scientists from Northwestern University and the U.S. Department of Energy’s Brookhaven National Laboratory describe the previously hidden sub-nanoscale origins of both the unusual shrinkage and the exceptional thermoelectric properties in this material, silver gallium telluride (AgGaTe2). The discovery reveals a quantum mechanical twist on what drives the emergence of these properties—and opens up a completely new direction for searching for new high-performance thermoelectrics.

“Thermoelectric materials will be transformational in green and sustainable energy technologies for heat energy harvesting and cooling—but only if their performance can be improved,” said Hongyao Xie, a postdoctoral researcher at Northwestern and first author on the paper. “We want to find the underlying design principles that will allow us to optimize the performance of these materials,” Xie said.

Thermoelectric devices are currently used in limited, niche applications, including NASA’s Mars rover, where heat released by the radioactive decay of plutonium is converted into electricity. Future applications might include materials controlled by voltage to achieve very stable temperatures critical for operation of high-tech optical detectors and lasers.

The main barrier to wider adoption is the need for materials with just the right cocktail of properties, including good electrical conductivity but resistance to the flow of heat.

Read more on the BNL website

Image: Brookhaven Lab members of the research team: Simon Billinge, Milinda Abeykoon, and Emil Bozin adjust instruments for data collection at the Pair Distribution Function beamline of the National Synchrotron Light Source II. In this setup, a stream of hot air heats samples with degree-by-degree precision as x-rays collect data on how the material changes.