Acquisition of an X-Ray Diffraction Facility for Materials Development and Characterization

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9803098 Clark This award provides support to create a regional x-ray diffration facility on the Boulder campus of the University of Colorado. This facility will fill a critical need on the Colorado Front Range for high resolution, high intensity laboratory-based x-ray diffraction. This facility will be set up, operated, and maintained by the Condensed Matter Laboratory of the Department of Physics, and will be made available to materials research groups on the University of Colorado campus and the Colorado Front Range. The instrument will be versatile, allowing both high and low resolution diffraction, will accomodate large sample chambers, including cryostats, ovens, and magnetic fields, enabling experimentation over a wide range of sample temperatures, and will include an area detector, for static as well as time-resolved diffraction. The x-ray generator is a rotating anode system which provides two equivalent, point source x-ray beams. One beam will be directed to a 4 cycle diffractometer and scintillation detector for performing theta - two theta or h-k-l scanned diffraction. The other beam will be used in conjuction with an area detector for single crystallography, small angle x-ray scattering, and time-resolved experiments. Each beam path/sample holder/detector assembly will be mounted on its own optical table and will be independently controlled by its own computer, a configuration that will enable two experiments to be performed simultaneously. This acquisition has broad support among the regional materials science community, with users from several University of Colorado Departments, including Physics, Chemistry, Chemical Engineering, Mechanical Engineering, and Geology, as well as from industry and the major Front Range research institutions, including NIST, the National Renewable Energy Laboratory, Colorado School of Mines, Colorado State University, and University of Wyoming. Ongoing and new Research projects proposed by the PIs and ini tial roster of users represent a broad spectrum of field defining condensed phase research. Experiments are proposed in the following areas: structural analysis of liquid crystals, high Tc superconductors, laser-deposited metal oxide thin films, new liquid crystal materials development, structure of ion-selective membranes, development of atomic layer controlled film growth techniques, characterization of ribozyme - cationic lipid complexes for transfection of cells with RNA-based enzymes, structure of phospholipid phases and tubules, reflectivity studies of polymeric interfaces, characterization of polymer/monomer -liquid crystal composites, characterization of ceramic coatings and films. The diffractometer system will be clustered with several other materials characterization instruments and operated as a self-supporting user facility maintained by a trained staff member under the direction of the Physics CML Facilities Committee. %%% ***