CHESS is a vital resource for educating new and emerging synchrotron scientists. As the only synchrotron located on a university campus, it is CHESS's mission to engage students who will directly benefit from this amazing resource.
24 students attended the workshop, which strives to not only engage new users, but underrepresented groups in synchrotron science. These students were able to get hands-on at CHESS, measuring multiple samples which they mounted and aligned in the beam, and then collected 3 different sets of data. They then compared this data to determine how the samples were different. This type of experience isn't very common, and the HEXT workshop is a great introduction to performing synchrotron experiments.
The workshop consisted of 3 main parts, covering the elemental techniques of performing research at a synchrotron.
1) Lectures by CHESS staff scientists, covering the fundamentals of synchrotron methods and how these can be applied to materials research. Topics include synchrotron basics, x-ray scattering, diffraction, imaging, and spectroscopy.
2) Instruction and coaching on how to write a successful proposal for beamtime, with the opportunity for personalized feedback from CHESS scientists. At the conclusion of the workshop, each participant leaves with the knowledge and demonstrated skills to be productive members of the CHESS user community.
3) Hands-on Experiments at the CHESS beamlines. Students were able to perform data collection using the techniques covered in the course. Within small groups, students worked side-by-side with CHESS staff scientists at the PIPOXS and QM2 Beamlines.
This workshop was funded by the National Science Foundation, NSF. 