In Pursuit of Excellence
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Mesostructural Information in 3D
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Preliminary Technical Design Report
The Microdiffraction Fluorescence Probe - Beamline 11
Polycrystallinity, strain, grain orientation and defect structure, migration and organisation are fundamental to understanding material’s properties. Beamline 11 is the only facility proposed for the Australian Synchrotron that will enable these properties to be measured, in 3D at sub-micron scale, correlated to composition (X-ray fluorescence) as well as local elemental coordination (X-ray absorption spectroscopy). The Australian scientific community does not currently have ready access to microdiffraction synchrotron facilities and thus the provision of Beamline 11 will truly be a new and important resource.
Provision of Beamline 11 will place the Australian
Synchrotron in an extremely select grouping at the leading edge of materials
science. Only one 3D diffraction facility currently exists in the world (UniCAT
Advanced Photon Source) with a further facility under construction (VESPERS,
Canadian Light Source). The design of Beamline 11 has been developed with
the collaboration of an international team including lead proponents of both
the APS and CLS teams. Dr. Gene Ice, Oak Ridge National Laboratory
(Corporate Fellow) and member of the UniCAT team states:
“Because we have incorporated the lesson learned from our first
generation polychromatic microprobe into your second-generation instrument,
it will be uniquely flexible but simple to use.”
Synchrotron microdiffraction has a highly creditable fundamental science pedigree. Some recent examples in high impact factor journals include: • B. Jakobsen, H.F. Poulsen, U. Lienert, J. Almer, S.D. Shastri, H.O. Sørensen, C. Gundlach, W. Pantleon, Formation and Subdivision of Deformation Structures During Plastic Deformation, Science 312, 889-892 (2006). • R.C. Rogan, N. Tamura, G.A. Swift, and E. Ustundag, Direct Measurement of Triaxial Strain Fields around Ferroelectric Domains Using X-Ray Microdiffraction, Nature Materials 2(6), 379-381 (2003). • B.C. Larson, W. Yang, G.E. Ice, J.D. Budai and J.Z. Tischler, Three-dimensional X-ray Structural Microscopy with Submicrometre Resolution, Nature, 415, 887-890 (2004). • G. Ice, Amorphous Materials: Characterizing Amorphous Strain, Nat. Mater. 4, 17-18 (2005).
A quick search across the Advanced Photon Source, European Synchrotron Research Facility and the Advanced Light Source yielded over 400 publications, relevant to Beamline 11, since 2000; compelling evidence for the productivity and wide demand for microdiffraction facilities.
The potential impact of Beamline 11 on the fundamental sciences has been recognised across a wide cross-section of the Australian scientific community comprising earth scientists, biologists, metallurgists, forensic scientists and materials scientists from CSIRO, ANSTO, Australian Universities and museums. Professor Ravi Naidu, Director of CRC CARE states that: “While a number of end-station facilities amongst the first nine beamlines are likely to be employed by our academic and industry partners we are particularly interested in the development of Beamline 11, the microdiffraction fluorescence probe. The ability to simultaneously map, on a micron scale, phase and composition will be an extremely valuable resource to both environmental and earth sciences.”
Beamline 11 was specifically mentioned as a development of importance to CSIRO in their NCRIS Roadmap submission and the development of Beamline 11 has been specifically targeted through an internal Emerging Sciences initiative. Interest has also been expressed by scientists in both Singapore and South Africa. In total representatives of several hundred researchers have expressed interest in using this facility with over 50 individual submissions.
Areas of impact within the National Priorities of the microdiffraction fluorescence probe bridge the fundamental and applied sciences and include:
• Frontier Technologies for Building and Transforming
Australian Industries: Breakthrough science, frontier technologies and
advanced materials;
• Safeguarding Australia: Transformational defence technologies;
• An Environmentally Sustainable Australia: Transforming existing
industries, overcoming soil loss and salinity, and acidity, reducing and
capturing emissions in transport and energy generation, developing deep
earth resources.
Letters of support and expressions of interest have been received from industries: Sola International, AMIRA, Magotteaux Australia Pty. Ltd., Industrial Research Limited, Environmental Geochemistry International, Rio Tinto and BHP-Billiton. The latter two companies are jointly funding a three-year project to learn more about the application of microprobes to the minerals industry, and to also enable the further development of Beamline 11 for minerals industry research, and are therefore taking the industrial lead. Deming Whitman, the CEO of AMIRA (Australian Minerals Research and Industry Association) states that: “We encourage the consideration of funding for Beamline 11 within the NCRIS Characterisation Priority. It is important to us that industry needs are recognized both in terms of the synchrotron experimental facilities provided and their management. We anticipate a high level of usage of the microdiffraction fluorescence probe by both our international clients and research providers.”
The University of South Australia has pledged $100k in prepaid instrument time on Beamline 11 to ensure a leading role in the continued development, both applied and fundamental, of this instrumentation.