Such organic perovskites can be prepared from a solution of readily available lead salts and organic cations (e.g., CH₃NH₃I) and yield the desired high-performance material under a gentle thermal anneal at 100°C. The process seems to be also relatively insensitive to impurities, as opposed to the ultra-high purity demands and high process temperatures of amorphous silicon, the most commonly used material for solar cells currently.

The rank of fellow is bestowed on members who "have been responsible for significant engineering achievements" and have been active members for at least ten years. Professor Miller’s work developing new X-ray techniques, primarily at CHESS, and his development of the In-Sitµ center were mentioned prominently in his award citation, highlighting their importance to the mechanical engineering community. "Professor Matthew P. Miller is an international leader in the development and engineering application of high energy x-rays to probe the micro-structure of materials under live loads. Prof.

CHESS summer student Arthur Campello tackled the task of designing a sample changing robot for CHESS D1 station, under the guidance of CHESS Staff Scientist Detlef Smilgies. The basic ingredients of the robot were a rotation stage as a sample carousel and a slim translation stage for the sample transfer. A suction device lightly picks up the sample in one of the 20 slots on the sample carousel. Then the translation stage transports the sample to the sample holder. Campello designed the basic structural components based on beamline dimensions and the available stages.

Through this program, high school teachers can borrow laboratory equipment to use in their science classes free of charge, for up to a week: “The goal of this initiative is to give high school teachers access to technology similar to that used in the CHESS research facility," states Lora Hine, director of Education and Outreach at CLASSE.

Their potential application is, however, currently limited as HOIPs shows structural instability under high temperature, humidity, or even extended light exposure. Understanding of the perovskite structural stability and phase transitions is deemed both timely and essential.

This is especially important when illuminating very small samples, as in protein microcrystallography where crystals can be on the order of a micron across and diffract weakly compared to larger crystals. Any excess scatter in these conditions will contribute unwanted noise and decrease the overall signal-to-noise ratio – an important measure of data quality. Consider an experiment where you first must take the water from a firehose and somehow get a water thread thinner than a human hair without any mist! That is akin to the scale of creating x-ray microbeam at CHESS.

The human population is expected to surpass 9 billion by 2050, and meeting future food and energy needs requires increases in agricultural production by enhancing productivity on existing land or by increasing the amount of land used for production. Achieving these gains depends on adequate levels of soil micronutrients like copper, low levels of which can impact yield by reducing fertility and, in extreme cases, lead to total crop failure.

Remote data collection, made possible by the use of a sample automounter such as the BAM-2 located at F1 and remote desktop software, is a growing trend at MacCHESS. Research groups regularly ship in their samples from as far away as Texas, and then operate the beamline over an Internet connection to the MacCHESS F1 data collection workstation.

“We can extract local strains, tilts, rotations, polarity and even electric and magnetic fields,” explained David Muller, professor of applied and engineering physics, who developed the new device with Sol Gruner, professor of physics, and members of their research groups.