News

A sizable group of MacCHESS personnel attended the annual meeting of the ACA (ACA: The Structural Science Society, formerly the American Crystallographic Association), held July 29-August 3 in Portland, Oregon. Home base was a booth in the Exhibit Hall, assembled, beautified, and manned by Irina Kriksunov. At the booth, visitors could read about activities at Sector 7, ask questions about whether they could make use of CHESS, and leave with informational postcards (as well as chocolates).

During a series of three single-week runs starting in 2020-1 and culminating in 2022-1, a team of researchers from NIST, collaborating with several industrial partners, employed the FMB beamline at MSN-C to develop and then demonstrate an AI-accelerated robot to rapidly map the composition of liquid formulations, from coatings to personal care products.

Jeney Wierman started as the new MacCHESS Director on July 1st, 2022.  Below is a welcome message to the whole CHESS Community.  Jeney takes over the MacCHESS directorship from Marian Szebenyi, who will be retiring later this year after 30 years at MacCHESS.

The Cornell Laboratory for Accelerator-based Sciences and Education (CLASSE) funds summer research opportunities in the areas of x-ray and accelerator sciences, materials science, chemistry, and mechanical engineering for pre-selected undergraduate students from primarily undergraduate institutions and minority serving institutions. Approximately a dozen REU (Research Experiences for Undergraduates) students each summer are hosted by CLASSE. Students from the CHESS summer programs -- SERCCS, PREM, and SUNRiSE -- are midway through their summer undergraduate research experience.

As many inhabitants of Wilson lab have heard, seen, smelled, and felt, the New Experimental Hall (NEH) civil construction project is full speed ahead. 

The High Energy X-ray Techniques (HEXT) workshop took place in late May, giving students the knowledge and skills to plan, conduct, and interpret synchrotron experiments, answering questions specific to their research interests in material science.

CHEXS users have directly observed an electronic configuration that is quantum mechanically mixed between the Yb2+ and Yb3+ valence states in the material YbB4. These observations confirm an “intermediate valence” conjecture for this material, which was first hypothesized 50 years ago.

Recent research performed at CHESS presents new insights into the microstructural evolution which occurs during annealing of Mg alloys using in-situ X-ray diffraction. These alloys have potential to make vehicles lighter and reduce greenhouse gases.