Soft Matter Sample Environment Suite for Canadian Small Angle Neutron Scattering

纳米材料在消费和工业市场上越来越普遍，提供更小、更轻、更耐用的产品，具有独特的性能。纳米级材料正影响着日常生活的方方面面：从化妆品中的乳剂和药物输送到我们消费品中的染料和颜料。除了这些目前的用途，先进材料研究正在创造新的应用：用于不可破解手机屏幕的自修复材料，用于智能药物输送的生物相容性组件，甚至能够感知和/或消除化学和微生物污染物的包装材料。***中子散射已被证明是在原子长度和时间尺度上研究凝聚态物质结构和动力学的最有力的方法之一。中子技术在物理、化学、磁学和超导、材料科学、文化遗产、生物学、软物质、健康、环境和气候科学等领域有着广泛的应用。***与其他软物质技术相比，小角中子散射（SANS）技术在分子水平上对生物、聚合物、食品等软物质系统的研究具有许多优势。例如，SANS对生物系统中常见的轻元素（例如，氢、碳、氮、氧等）很敏感，并且不依赖于体积庞大的荧光团或自旋标记探针，这可能会极大地改变这些系统的物理性质。SANS是研究有机组件的理想选择，如脂蛋白、细胞膜、聚合物和纳米颗粒，因为通过改变溶剂、蛋白质和脂质的2H/1H（重水/轻水）比例，可以实现广泛的散射长度密度（SLD）对比。通过对比匹配，可以突出或抑制来自系统各个组成部分（即脂质、溶剂或蛋白质）的散射，从而可以可靠地确定颗粒的分子化组织和结构。***该仪器将支持当前NSERC，加拿大研究主席和工业合作项目，由提案的pi和频繁用户。此外，所要求的仪器将为合作提供新的机会，国际研究将培养大量的HQP。该基础设施将支持的研究领域多种多样，包括(i)关于细胞膜的基础研究；（ii）开发新型脂质体和其他生物材料配方，用于输送药物制剂，并作为MRI或PET造影剂的平台；（iii）设计用于先进电子聚合物纳米粒子的新型半导体聚合物；（四）燃料电池用聚合物膜

Nanomaterials are becoming increasingly common on the consumer and industrial market, providing smaller, lighter and more durable products with unique properties. Nanoscale materials are impacting all aspects of everyday life: from the emulsions in makeup and pharmaceutical delivery to the dyes and pigments in our consumer products. In addition to these current uses, Advanced Materials research is creating new applications: self-healing materials for uncrackable cell phone screens, biocompatible assemblies for smart drug delivery, and even packaging materials capable of sensing and/or eliminating chemical and microbial contaminants.***Neutron scattering has proven to be one of the most powerful methods for the investigation of structure and dynamics of condensed matter on atomic length and time scales. Neutron techniques have a broad range of applications in physics, chemistry, magnetism and superconductivity, material sciences, cultural heritage, biology, soft matter, health, and environmental and climate science. ***Compared to other soft matter techniques, small angle neutron scattering (SANS) offers many advantages for the study of biological, polymer, food stuffs among other soft matter systems at the molecular level. For example, SANS is sensitive to light elements (e.g., H, C, N, O, etc.) commonly found in biological systems and does not rely on bulky fluorophore or spin-label probes, which can drastically alter the physical properties of these systems. SANS is ideal for studying organic assemblies, such as lipoproteins, cell membranes, polymers and nanoparticles, due to the broad range of scattering length density (SLD) contrasts achievable by varying the 2H/1H (heavy/light water) ratios of the solvent, protein, and lipid. Scattering from individual components of the system, i.e., lipid, solvent, or protein, can be highlighted or suppressed through contrast matching, allowing for robust determination of the molecularization organization and structure of particles.***This instrumentation will support current NSERC, Canada Research Chair and industrial collaboration projects by the proposal's PIs and frequent users. Furthermore, the requested instrumentation will provide new opportunities for collaborative, international research that will train numerous HQP. Research areas this infrastructure will support are varied and include (i) fundamental research regarding cellular membranes; (ii) development of novel liposomal and other biomaterial formulations for delivery of pharmaceutical agents and as platforms for MRI or PET contrast agents; (iii) design of new semiconducting polymers for advanced electronicspolymer nanoparticles; and (iv) polymer membranes for fuel cells.**