NSF's ChemMatCARS: A synchrotron X-ray national facility for chemistry and materials research at the Advanced Photon Source

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The Division of Chemistry, the Division of Materials Research and the Directorate for Mathematical and Physical Sciences Office of Multidisciplinary Activities provide continuing support to NSF's ChemMatCARS. This is a national user facility for frontier research in chemistry and materials science employing synchrotron X-rays at the Advanced Photon Source, Argonne National Laboratory. Various stations at NSF's ChemMatCARS serve a broad national and international community of scientists providing some unique capabilities not found anywhere else in the world. Research activities address vital societal issues, including the development of new energy sources, biomolecular materials inspired by biological processes, studies of interactions that help in understanding the rules of life, environmental remediation processes, and new materials and catalysts important for a wide range of industries. The midscale-funded facility serves as a training ground for researchers at all levels and carries out numerous activities to develop and diversify the future STEM workforce.This user facility provides a unique high brilliance X-ray resource for the study of advanced small-molecule crystallography, liquid surface and interface scattering, and anomalous small angle X-ray scattering. Advanced instrumentation at NSF's ChemMatCARS enables forefront research of ordered and disordered solids, liquids and interfaces on the atomic, molecular and mesoscopic length scales over a range of time scales from nanoseconds to minutes. Users of NSF's ChemMatCARS take advantage of its unique capabilities to address a wide variety of scientific problems. Examples of crystallographic research topics include studies of electron density distributions, disorder in thermoelectric materials, photo-responsive materials essential to capture solar light for energy production and storage, capturing reactive intermediates in photosynthesis models and catalysts, and studying phason strain (face distortion) in quasicrystals under high pressure. Additional illustrations are studies of three-dimensional delta-pair distribution function (3D-delta-PDF) that provides detailed and quantitative information on defects, disorder and lattice dynamics, examination of explosives under extreme conditions, metal-organic frameworks for gas adsorption and separation, inorganic materials for catalytic, electronic and magnetic applications, and ferroelectric assemblies. The synchrotron provides the most powerful probe of molecular and mesoscale structure at liquid/liquid and liquid/surface interfaces which are essential to the understanding interactions between macromolecules (e.g., proteins) and cell membranes that underlie many life processes and provide information to determine the rules of life. This area also provides information on organized assembly of nanoparticles at liquid interfaces with specific optical, catalytic, sensing, and electromagnetic functionalities. The anomalous small angle X-ray scattering (ASAXS) for the study of metal ion distribution near polyelectrolytes, colloids, and nanoparticles from bulk materials. ASAXS is the only technique that can measure the distribution of specific elements within the bulk environment of disordered materials. This is used to study the effect of metal ions on nucleic acids RNA and DNA and to gain understanding and improve separations processes of lanthanides and actinides that is useful in processing radioactive waste.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.