X-ray School at CARS
Summer 2002
In August, two groups of students enrolled in the Annual National School for X-ray and Neutron Scattering held at Argonne and spent a couple of days doing experiments in beamlines 13 and 15 as part of the course.
At GSECARS, the students used the x-ray microprobe on the undulator beamline to study elemental composition and oxidation states in a basaltic glass grown in an electric field to simulate the variability of oxygen abundance found in meteors and terrestrial basalts. After learning about quantitative x-ray fluorescence (XRF) and x-ray absorption near-edge spectroscopy (XANES), the students collected x-ray fluorescence and XANES data to determine relative concentrations and valences.
At ChemMatCARS, students received a brief theory behind SAXS (small-angle x-ray scattering) experiments and then looked at x-ray scattering from aqueous solutions of commercially produced silicon spheres which were on the order of hundreds of angstroms in diameter. The group was able to estimate this size from analysis of their data.
Both experiments were chosen for oral presentations by the group at the end of the course.