THE ELECTRONIC ALADDIN
NEWSLETTER NO. 31
November 2002
1. Science
Directorate Appointed
A three-person interim Scientific Directorate has been appointed
to replace former Research Director Franz Himpsel. These interim
directors have been given the task of providing leadership in the
research and education areas at SRC.
Professor Juan Carlos Campuzano (University of Illinois-Chicago)
is a leading researcher in high-temperature superconductors using
synchrotron radiation techniques. As interim Scientific Director
for Condensed Matter, he will oversee the SRC core programs in highly
correlated systems, superconductors, magnetism, and atoms/ions/molecules.
Professor Gelsomina "pupa" De Stasio (UW-Madison) is a
leader in spectromicroscopic analysis, which she has pioneered and
applied to investigations of a new brain cancer therapy. She has
also collaborated on projects in many other fields, including a
study of mineral-metabolizing bacteria and a geological project
investigating 4.4 billion year old zircons that provide information
about the early earth. Her varied interests and experience make
her well-suited for interim Scientific Director for Multidisciplinary
Science. In this position she will focus on fostering crosscutting
applications of synchrotron light.
Professor James Taylor (UW-Madison) is the former SRC Executive
Director and is currently Associate Director for the Center for
NanoTechnology, where his research centers on developing and characterizing
resists for nanocircuits. An essential aspect of his role as interim
Scientific Director for Educational Programs will be to develop
educational material on beamlines and research instrumentation of
general interest to the synchrotron radiation community.
2. New Hires
Assistant Scientist: Dr. Lisa Wiese was hired in July to provide
experimental support for spectromicroscopy users. She will be working
with Gelsomina "pupa" De Stasio to assist users both in
operating the instrumentation and analyzing the data. Dr. Wiese
obtained her PhD. in Atomic Molecular Optical Physics from the University
of Nebraska-Lincoln in 1998 and has spent the last three years at
SRC as a postdoc with Jim Lawler working on laboratory astrophysics.
Technical Writer: Rebecca Kinraide was hired in October to provide
technical and science writing, web development and outreach support
for the SRC Shared Administration and the SRC Outreach Coordinator.
Ms. Kinraide is a graduate student in History of Science at UW-Madison
and has previously worked as a technical writer for the Physical
Sciences Laboratory and the Center for NanoTechnology.
3. The 35th SRC Users' Meeting
This year's Users' Meeting provided a positive atmosphere for the
discussion of research and new opportunities at the SRC. Thanks
to the efforts of Dave Lynch, the program chair, the meeting was
interesting and meaningful. The talks described recent work at SRC
which is at the leading edge of many scientific fields. The poster
session, with nearly 40 posters, provided an opportunity for researchers
to showcase their work and foment discussion. The banquet, held
at the Dry Bean, provided good food and an informal atmosphere.
Approximately 75 participants attended the meeting.
Among the most exciting talks were those given by this year's winners
of the Aladdin Lamp Award for the most impressive thesis work performed
at the SRC, Jason Crain and Adam Kaminski. Jason Crain is a member
of the Department of Physics, University of Wisconsin-Madison, under
the advisorship of Franz Himpsel. Jason described the construction
of metal wires consisting of single atoms lined up one after the
other. These wires, which cannot exist by themselves, are made by
having the atoms line up on a specially prepared surface of Silicon.
Unlike normal metal wire, in which electrons hop from atom to atom,
with more electrons hopping in the direction of the electric field,
carrying the current, in these artificial one-dimensional wires
electrons appear to break up into two waves, one carrying the charge
in one direction, and the other carrying the spin of the electron
in the other direction.
Adam Kaminski is a member of the Department of Physics, University
of Illinois at Chicago, under the advisorship of Juan Carlos Campuzano.
Adam described experiments on time reversal symmetry breaking. Adam
and his collaborators find that high-temperature superconductors
not only exhibit the strange pseudogap phenomena, but that in this
state the motion of an electron forward is not the same as the motion
backwards. This is unlike most motion in nature, where if an event
is played backward the moving object would return to its original
position.
Other talks of note were ones given by Ben Gilbert and Brandon Sonderegger.
Ben showed that the world of nanoparticles is much more complicated
than previously thought. He finds that in small particles, the atoms
do not keep the arrangements that they have in large crystals, but
become rather disordered. But more interestingly, adsorption of
some molecules on the surface of the nanoparticles restores the
order of the atoms inside it. Brandon spoke about the new possibility
of killing deadly brain cancer tumors called glioblastomas by using
neutrons in a way that does not destroy the surrounding healthy
tissue. Brandon and collaborators are using a novel microscope developed
at SRC that can tell researchers when the neutron-absorbing molecules
have been localized in the cancerous cells, but not in the healthy
ones. Once this is accomplished it may lead to a very effective
therapy.
Mark Bissen chaired a discussion about the next high impact beamline
to be built at SRC. Mark is currently continuing that discussion
by e-mail, and the beamline characteristics (energy range, resolution,
flux, spot size) will be determined by the end of November.
The winner of the Best Poster competition was Jens Paggel (Freie
Universitat Berlin, Institute fur Experimentalphysik) for his poster
entitled "Quantum Oscillations in the Work Function of Atomically-Uniform
Films: Theory and Experiment for Ag/Fe(100)."
4. SRC Workshop on Phonon-Electron
Interaction
The workshop the day after the Users' Meeting was on the subject
of the electron-phonon interaction, which now can be studied by
photoelectron spectroscopy at synchrotron radiation sources. It
was a tribute to the late Eric Jensen, an early user of Tantalus
at SRC who was the first to find the effect of the electron-phonon
interaction in photemission. Ward Plummer began the workshop with
a moving description of Eric and his work. There was lively discussion
regarding whether experiments on high-temperature superconductors
are influenced by phonons, but perhaps the most intriguing talk
was given by a student, Luca Perfetti, who showed how photoemission
can directly show the fluctuations occurring just before a phase
transition occurs. In this case, he described the large density
wave transition, which has also been studied for some time, but
never with such amazing detail. Luca also showed the tell-tale signs
of an unusual metal-insulator transition called the Mott transition.
This elusive transition, believed to be operational in the high
temperature superconductors, is observed by Luca to occur unexpectedly
in a Fermi liquid material at the surface, where the changed potential
sets up just the right conditions. Forty people attended the workshop.
More information on the meeting and workshop can be found at the
SRC website at
http://www.src.wisc.edu/meetings/SRC_UM2002/
5. New NSF Program Director Visits
SRC
Dr. Hugh Van Horn, our new NSF Program Director (National Facilities,
Division of Materials Research) made his first visit to the Synchrotron
Radiation Center on October 18th. Joe Bisognano gave him an overview
of the facility and its operations and discussed the developing
long range plan based on the spring meeting of the Dean's Outside
Review Committee. Juan Carlos Campuzano described the core programs
in high temperature superconductors and low dimensional systems
and the need for a next generation, high performance beamline. Gelsomina
"pupa" De Stasio presented the broad range of present
and future research with new Users enabled by photoemission electron
microscopy (PEEM) techniques, including brain cancer therapy, geology,
microbiology, and environmental science.
During a two-hour tour of Aladdin and the beamlines, Dr. Van Horn
engaged in animated conversations with users, staff, and students
on a variety of research topics including the nanolithography program
of CNTech, infrared experiments, the Scienta 2002 analyzer, the
new Wadsworth beamline, and fluorescence.
Over lunch Jim Taylor presented SRC's plans for education development
including the development of tools for training in beamline techniques.
Associate Dean Terry Millar of the UW Graduate School also participated
in the discussion and commented on coordination with the newly funded
Wisconsin Center for Education Research. After lunch, Dr. Van Horn
met with Graduate School Dean Martin Cadwallader, who is principal
investigator for the SRC-NSF Cooperative Agreement. The discussions
included planning for the spring 2004 interim review. SRC was encouraged
to look confidently toward its long range future and to develop
initiatives to advance its scientific impact. This encouragement
was shared with the Users' Advisory Committee prior to the Users'
Meeting of October 25th and with the users attending the annual
meeting.
6. Congratulations to:
Max G. Lagally, E.W. Mueller Professor in the Department of Materials
Science and Engineering at the University of Wisconsin-Madison,
was awarded a 2002 Tibbetts Award for his company Piezomax Technologies,
Inc. (now nPoint Inc.) and for leading this Madison company to successful
development of nanomotion products. The Tibbitts Award honors individuals,
small firms, projects, and organizations that have used the stimulus
of Small Business Innovation Research funding to make a clear and
definable difference.
7. Notes
The new beamline schedule for the next 6 months has been posted
on the website at
http://www.src.wisc.edu/facilities/beamlines/schedule/
There will be an infrared workshop in January at SRC. The link is:
http://www.src.wisc.edu/irworkshop/
The SRC annual report was sent to the NSF in October
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