For decades, the Wilson Laboratory, which houses the Cornell High Energy Synchrotron Source (CHESS), has relied on four immense cooling towers that evaporate 10,000 gallons of water daily to reduce the temperature of the nearly 650 electromagnets – some roughly twice the size of a human being – that line a half-mile-long ring buried 40 feet below a scenic swath of east campus.
Q: Could you tell me a little bit about your initial experience as a community college student in the SERCCS program at CLASSE?
August 9, 2023, was the deadline for Proposals – though the User Office does accept proposals after the deadline, users are asked to please get proposals in ASAP for a chance at beam time starting in October. We will continue to accept Rapid Access proposals for the Beamline 7A HP BioSAXS and BioSAXS and Beamline 7B2 HPBio MX & FlexX throughout the upcoming run.
The CHESS Lending Library is a scientific equipment loan program hosted by the Cornell High Energy Synchrotron Source that provides free hands-on experiment kits for empowering teachers and engaging students in high quality labs. Kits are designed for specific scientific fields such as biology, chemistry, and physics as well as different age groups including elementary, middle, and high school grade levels. Learn more by downloading our 2023 brochure!
Scientists are especially interested in nanotextures that are distributed non-uniformly throughout a thin film because they can give the material novel properties. The most effective way to study the nanotextures is to visualize them directly, a challenge that typically requires complex electron microscopy and does not preserve the sample.
Just as space holds infinite mysteries, when we zoom in at the level of biomolecules (one trillion times smaller than a meter), there is still so much to learn.
Summer Engineering Research for Community College Students (SERCCS) selects 4-5 students from (2-year) community colleges for eight-week internships in accelerator and x-ray sciences research, during which students also attend/lead formal seminars, tour research facilities, and enjoy social and recreational events.