August 14, 2008 Meeting of the NSLS XAS Training Working Group

Our next meeting is Friday Sept. 26

Our assignments for that meeting are to come with ideas for actual content for the orientation to XAS module:

• Khalid: sample prep & beamlines

• Anatoly: Exp. sequence & what you need

• Faisel: GUPs & why exafs? & sample prep

• Scott: what you need & exp. sequence

• Bruce: why exafs? & beamlines & GUPs

• Here are Kathy's notes from the meeting: Educational_Initiatives.pdf.

• Also from Kathy, here is a list of synchrotron courses from across the 4 DOE snchrotrons: DOE_LightSources_Workshops.pdf.

Here are Bruce's notes from the discussion about the contents of the training courses.

Orientation to XAS

Experimental sequence

• problem
• protocol
• sample prep
• measurement / exp. design
• data reduction
• data analysis
• data interpretation

(Protocol) What you need in terms of

• standards
• samples
• expertise
• complementary data
• equipment

(Sample prep) Sample preparation

• particle size
• uniformity
• tape vs. dilution
• video training

(Measurement/exp. design) Synchrotron radiation basics

• source gives white light, mono give monochromatic light
• basic beamline knowledge
• energy ranges
• detector types
• trans. vs. fluor. vs. yield

GU Proposal writing

• Matt Newville's APS GUP Guidelines

Pointers to resources, links, and further training

Tasks

• What level of expertise do you need for your task? Can we come up with a level scheme or a general grouping of task types?
• Give an example for each task and work through this procedure for our example tasks.
• Is my material material X? How do you answer this question....
• I have a novel material, how do I learn something about its structure?

Self tests

Web training for a successful experiment

This section need never be finished, that is, new modules can be added as needed

How detectors work

Overview of synchrotron radiation

• Stored beam, synch. physics
• Bend magnet v. wiggler v. undulator
• Beamline optics, harmonics and other photon issues

Pitfalls

• Each topic should have a pitfalls sidebar

How a Fourier transform works

• This would benefit by a fun web applet

What good data looks like?

• Things that can be eyeballed....
• Good data
• Iffy data
• Bad data
• with examples in all three categories as mu(E), chi(k), chi(R)

cartoon of XAS physics

Intro to data

• these are columns of detectors
• this is mu(E)
• this is norm mu(E)
• this is chi(k)
• this is chi(R)
• ... and how you get from one to the next

Intro to software

• Data processing in Athena (or other packages)
• other software aspects e.g. data format in/data format out

statistics and measurement uncertainty

• pinholes leading to systematic error
• central limit theorem
• edge step optimization

Introductory Short Course & training the trainers

1. History of XAS
2. examples of applications
3. premade samples (use a 4d metal for simpler data prep?)
4. sample prep
5. data processing/reduction

6. LCF & PCA

7. 1st shell analysis
8. theory of XAS / XANES
9. data collection at the beamline

Course layout

• Day 1
  • intro lectures
  • sample prep
• Day2
  • more lectures
  • data collection at beamlines
• Day 3
  • more lectures and examples
  • data processing and analysis
  • wrap-up lecture, where you go from here

Attachments to this page

• • [get | view] (2008-08-25 15:36:51, 60.5 KB) [[attachment:DOE_LightSources_Workshops.pdf]]
  • [get | view] (2008-08-25 15:36:41, 28.6 KB) [[attachment:Educational_Initiatives.pdf]]