Abstracts

The future of university-based synchrotron facilities

Joel Brock

Department of Applied and Engineering Physics, Cornell

Modern synchrotron facilities provide unique techniques for studying the structure and behavior of matter at the microstructural, molecular, and atomic levels. The breadth and depth of the diverse research communities that depend on these facilities to provide the data they need to address their frontier challenges demonstrate the power of these capabilities. In recent years, there has been a major effort worldwide to build diffraction limited (4^th generation) storage rings and X-ray Free Electron Lasers which approach the fundamental physical (e.g., the diffraction) limits on x-ray beam quality. However, the scale (size, complexity, and cost) of these new facilities both puts them out of reach of university-based facilities and optimizes the facilities for the missions of the national laboratories.

In this talk, I will give an alternative view of a future for university-based synchrotron facilities based on our experience at CHESS.

Advancing nuclear materials research using synchrotron radiation

Andrew P. Grosvenor

Department of Chemistry, University of Saskatchewan

Multiple solid-state materials have been proposed/developed for the sequestration of high-level nuclear waste such as spent/used nuclear fuel. Glass-based waste forms are used (or proposed for use) by many countries owing to the ease of synthesis and the significant number of different waste elements that can be incorporated into a glass matrix. However, these waste forms have a lower resistance to corrosion compared crystalline ceramic oxides and a lower capacity to incorporate high concentrations of heavy waste elements (e.g., actinides). Crystalline ceramic oxides and phosphates have been proposed for the sequestration of heavy waste (i.e.,) elements. One family of crystalline oxide materials that have received a lot of attention are A₂B₂O₇ materials. In the first part of this presentation, I will discuss a study of changes in the structure of Gd₂Zr_2-xCe_xO₇ materials depending on Ce concentration. In this system, Ce is being used as a surrogate for Pu. Using synchrotron-XRD, we have found that the structure evolves from pyrochlore, to defect fluorite, and finally to the bixbyite structure as x increases from 0 to 2. We have also been investigating glass-ceramic composite materials where crystallites of ceramic oxides or phosphates are dispersed in a glass matrix. The hypothesis is that these composite materials will enable larger concentrations of all waste elements to be incorporated in the waste form with the lighter/smaller ions being preferentially incorporated in the glass matrix while the heavier/larger ions are incorporated into specific crystallographic positions in the ceramic oxides/phosphates. Our investigations of composite materials containing different oxide/phosphate crystallites dispersed in a borosilicate glass matrix will be discussed during the second part of this presentation with a focus being placed on the use of XANES to developing a fundamental understanding of these materials.

Materials Characterization for Future Computing Applications

Christian Lavoie

IBM T.J. Watson Research Center

In this talk we will discuss some of IBM’s current and planned development work which covers the advances and necessary innovations in CMOS technologies, the manufacturing of analog devices promising for AI systems, the development of quantum devices and the packaging developments necessary to allow vertical integration and the use of 3D chiplets. We will show some recent material characterization examples where the synchrotron is key to understand or accelerate device optimization. With the construction of novel characterization facilities, we will also discuss some of the expected characterization needs for cutting-edge devices and advanced manufacturing.