Friends and colleagues, You may be aware that plans are afoot to build a new synchrotron light source, dubbed NSLS-II, at Brookhaven Lab. This will be a medium energy (3 GeV) storage ring of extremely high brightness, proposed to start operations in 2013. I am writing to ask you to attend the NSLS-2 User Workshop coming up at BNL on 17-18 July. This meeting will provide an opportunity to hear details about the proposed machine and to participate in a breakout session which will define the next generation of powder diffraction x-ray scattering instruments for NSLS-2.
Current plans are for a powder diffraction line to be one of the instruments built by the facility and operating on day 1. (Specifically, on a damping wiggler line, a very hot source having critical energy of 10.8 keV, brightness 10^18 photons / sec / 0.1% bw / mm^2 / mrad^2 at 50 keV, flux 5 x 10^14 photons / sec / 0.1% bw @ 50 keV. See the conceptual design report on the nsls2 website for more details.) This is extremely fortunate for our community, but it should not be taken for granted. First, we need to mobilize a clear message of enthusiastic support for such an enterprise. Second, we should start to work to define exactly what we want. This is the time to consider integrating beamline design with sample environments with the hope of defining a facility that is not just one more powder diffraction beamline, but rather a significant step forward in research capability. As a community, we must meet at this early stage to discuss: - next generation powder diffraction - related techniques such as pair distribution function - new detection modes and detector capabilities (e.g., not-quite-powder samples: 10-1000 crystals in a sample measured with an area detector) - new scientific opportunities and the scientific case - proposed organizational structure to fund and run the beamline for maximum scientific productivity and best access. We will be bringing one or two invited speakers to share their experiences and insights with other recent powder diffraction beamlines at major facilities. Go to https://www.bnl.gov/nsls2meeting/ (note that https:// is required) and register, including for the powder breakout session. If you want, please plan to give a short talk on your research interests or specific ideas about future instrumentation for powder diffraction. Note that the workshop deadline is 12 July. Best regards, Peter PS - if you have any comments that are not intended for the entire Rietveld discussion list, please make sure to direct them to me - [EMAIL PROTECTED] ^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~ Peter W. Stephens Professor, Department of Physics and Astronomy Stony Brook University Stony Brook, NY 11794-3800 fax 631-632-8176
