Scattering from Liquid Surfaces: Construction Funds for Beamline Xl9C at The National Synchrotron Light Source, Brookhaven National Laboratory

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This award from the Chemistry Research Instrumentation Program will help the Department of Chemistry at the University of Chicago renovate the beamline X19C at the National Synchrotron Light Source, which will be used in research investigations in the following areas of chemistry: 1) determination of the structure of surfaces of complex fluids composed of polymers, lipids, lyotropic and thermotropic liquid crystals, 2) the structure of the liquid metal-vapor and liquid metal-liquid dielectric interfaces, and 3) the structure of monolayers of amphiphiles at the liquid-vapor and liquid-liquid interface. Surface sensitive x-ray scattering techniques are used to study phenomena occuring at liquid interfaces. These techniques require that the x-ray source have high brilliance, i.e., typically a synchrotron source must be used. A high-brillance source is needed because the number of scattering molecules at the interface is very small, the intrinsic scattering power of the organic compound of interest is very low, and the beam size required for grazing incidence Bragg diffraction is very small. The areas of potential technological application of the techniques which will be enabled by the instrumentation which will be provided are polymer surfaces and interfaces for improved lubrication and adhesion, cohesion of composite materials, synthetic thin films, coatings, and electrodes.