2024 User Meeting Workshops & Tutorials

This tutorial is tailored for students and postdocs, including those who have no prior exposure to synchrotron experiments. It provides a broad introductory overview of the science one can perform at the ALS with an emphasis on some of the experimental techniques, from photoemission and spectroscopy to scattering and imaging. Each topic will include a general introduction to the technique(s) and examples of applications highlighting the capabilities of the ALS beamlines. There will also be content related to the Molecular Foundry, a nanoscale research facility located steps away from the ALS at LBNL, which enables synergistic research in a single trip.

Anyone can perform experiments at the ALS for free, and access to this facility is through a beamtime proposal process. As such, there will be a session about how to become a user of the ALS and obtain beamtime, including guidance about how to write a proposal and how proposals are evaluated.

This is the place to ask all the questions you have about a particular technique and how to successfully apply it to your scientific project! Students with no/limited prior synchrotron experience are particularly encouraged to attend.

This tutorial will present demonstrations of some of the basic tools and approaches for image processing for microCT data and will feature microCT users to showcase case studies of what they have done to get impressive visualizations and quantitative results from their data. We will also highlight some of the new tools that the ALS and collaborators are developing to accelerate data processing and apply some of the latest and greatest machine learning tools. Finally, we will have a block of time for participants to schedule 1:1 meetings with a selection of image processing, computing, visualization, and microCT experts. Participants can submit data or questions in advance to be matched up for a session with the appropriate expert and have time to consult on their data.

The upgrade of the Advanced Light Source will increase the coherent flux by 100x and has been designed to be unsurpassed by any currently envisioned technology. This will position the ALS as a world leader in coherent soft x-ray science for years to come. This workshop aims to showcase current coherent x-ray science with an outlook on what new science may be accessed with the boost in coherence. Recently, coherence-based techniques such as coherent diffraction imaging (CDI), holography, ptychography, and x-ray photon correlation spectroscopy (XPCS) have seen increasing international development and have demonstrated their use for broad applications, from biosciences to physics and materials sciences. This workshop aims to provide users a better understanding of what coherence is and how it could benefit their current or future research at the ALS (better sensitivity, more resolution, faster measurements). The workshop will feature a short tutorial with some basic coherence principles and fundamental theoretical concepts in addition to scientific and technical talks from international and local experts on the current and future use of x-ray coherence.

Correlating multiple signals from distinct imaging modalities can enable deep understanding of form and function in materials. Yet correlative microscopy holds inherent challenges, from equipment access to experimental acquisition to image processing to data management. This joint Molecular Foundry–ALS workshop will highlight examples of correlative studies using multiple imaging methods to achieve insights unrealizable using a single technique alone. Multiple experiments performed on a single tool or beamline as well as those performed across several instruments or facilities will be included, as will imaging, spectroscopy, and diffraction imaging methods. We’ll discuss pragmatic implementation, barriers and challenges, and paths forward for effective correlative experimentation. The session will include a balance of highlight talks and presentations, workshops and interactive demos, and open discussion.

This workshop aims to give a comprehensive overview of existing collaborations between the Molecular Foundry and the ALS, enabling research by various user groups from the nanoscience community. Nanoscience often requires researchers to combine several synthesis and characterization techniques into one experiment to be able to provide mechanistic insights into growth mechanisms, phase change, nucleation pathways, and kinetics of conformational changes or interactions between molecular constituents. During this workshop, we will provide tutorials on structural characterization methods for organic, inorganic, and biological materials that exist at the ALS as well as how user communities from these fields utilize them in combination with additional characterization and synthesis capabilities at the Molecular Foundry. Additionally, there will be tutorials on specific equipment used for multimodal characterization and presentations on case studies by users from the halide perovskite, structural biology, and polymer communities.

The SYnergy of Soft and Tender X-rays for Earth Research (SYSTER) program is a component of the National Science Foundation’s newly funded Synchrotron Earth and Environmental Science (SEES) facility. The purpose of the 5-year SEES facility is to support Earth, environmental, and geoscience research at US synchrotron facilities nationwide. The SYSTER program has begun to provide immediate access to existing x-ray microscopes, develop new access to instruments and endstations, and invest in training SEES users to successfully utilize the suite of ALS x-ray microscopy techniques. The ALS x-ray microscopes cover a broad energy range (~200–2500 eV) and have complementary specializations such as light element spectroscopy (Beamline 5.3.2.2), high spatial resolution (Beamline 7.0.1.2), and in situ methods (Beamlines 5.3.2.1 and 11.0.2.2). In this tutorial, we will provide an overview of the ALS x-ray microscopes included in the SYSTER program. We will highlight applications of scanning transmission x-ray microscopy (STXM), spectromicroscopy, and ptychography to natural samples. We will discuss pre- and post-characterization of samples, study design, proposal preparation, and data handling. We will share information about how to engage with the SYSTER Approved Program. This tutorial is for novice and experienced researchers in the Earth, environment, and geoscience disciplines.

The 2024 SIBYLS BioSAXS workshop is designed for current and future SIBYLS (Beamline 12.3.1) SAXS users. During the morning session, the latest advances in SAXS studies on biological systems will be discussed with particular focus on advances in our mail-in SAXS program and on advances in synchrotron scattering techniques, modeling of dynamic and flexible structures, BioSAXS with membrane protein, and integrating BioSAXS analysis within cryo-EM imaging and crystallography. SIBYLS’s SAXS beamline scientists will introduce the future of high-throughput and size-exclusion-coupled SAXS. We will present talks about integrating high-resolution models in the SAXS modeling. The afternoon session will be spent on hands-on tutorials with our beamline scientists. Our beamline scientists will demonstrate step-by-step SAXS analysis using the latest SAXS analysis software. Participants will have the opportunity to work on their own projects with the SIBYLS staff and SAXS experts. Interested users can present their case studies to the group. This will provide for a flux of ideas among workshop participants and inspire new perspectives for future data analysis.

As existing CMOS-based microelectronics meet fundamental barriers, alternative material classes are being explored for novel functionalities and new device architectures are being developed to continue miniaturization, scaling, and improve energy efficiency. A central pillar of these efforts remains the integration of spin rather than charge as a carrier of information, which already represents an irreplaceable element in present-day storage devices and is shaping up to play a momentous role in logic applications like neuromorphic and probabilistic computing.

The agenda of this workshop builds upon the recent microelectronics workshop at LBNL. One of the challenges identified in the workshop is a lack of connection between scientists on the materials and fundamental phenomena side of research, and experts on device architecture and implementation. This disconnect can hamper progress and slow down innovation. With this workshop we take a step toward bridging the gap between these two interdependent disciplines and hope to foster connections and collaborations, informed by a mutual understanding of needs and capabilities on either side.

Materials and phenomena research topics will include new developments in spin- and orbitronics, functional material classes such as complex oxides, 2D materials, and molecular magnets, as well as dynamic interactions in nanostructures that relate to data storage and computation such as magnonic crystals and artificial spin ice. Highlight presentations will be given by experts in the field of microelectronics and computing.