Provision of Open-Access Positron Beam Spectroscopy to Canadian Universities (OPEN-POS)

该提案要求提供资金购买放射源，为用于获取先进材料独特信息的慢速正电子设备提供高速正电子。作为一个直接的结果，我们将提供对麦克马斯特大学慢正电子束的开放访问：所谓的开放POS。多年来，慢正电子湮没谱(PAS)提供了与界面、点缺陷和空洞的纳米结构相关的材料和器件的独特且无损的表征。PAS需要向所研究的材料或系统提供高通量的正电子，麦克马斯特大学拥有世界上仅有的八个致力于材料科学的慢正电子束之一。我们将把正电子设备的直接使用扩展到任何加拿大学术(远程用户)，无论他们在哪里，提供更多的用户多样性(跨性别、种族、职业点和地理位置)。在这种情况下，我们将“远程用户”定义为对PAS基础设施和在其上执行的实验具有完全控制，但不在基础设施的直接位置的个人或组。我们描述了一系列的项目，从熟悉PAS的用户，到PAS的新手，包括那些远离慢正电子束位置的用户。这些项目包括对光子薄膜、半导体材料、2-D薄膜和光伏器件的表征。这项工作的直接好处将是提高集成光学电路(用于为信息高速公路供电)、纳米电子电路和传感器(用于物联网)和太阳能电池(在应对气候变化方面至关重要)的性能和生产成本。这项提议的具体要求是为购买高通量22na正电子源提供资金。流量越大，可以服务的实验和用户数量就越多。因此，我们要求使用可用的最高通量源。在这项提议将实现的试探性推广中，我们将为四名远程用户建立访问权限，其中两名是麦克马斯特的早期职业研究人员，没有PAS经验；一名有PAS经验，位于安大略省的另一所大学；一名没有PAS经验，位于不同的省份。在成功的初步推出后，我们预计将需要一年时间，我们的计划是向所有感兴趣的用户开放加拿大各地的Open-POS。我们将扩展这些想法，以加快我们开放实验室模式的发展，该模式将提供对位于麦克马斯特中央设施的更多基础设施的访问。

This proposal requests funds to purchase a radioactive source to supply a high rate of positrons for a slow positron facility, used for acquisition of unique information on advanced materials. As a direct result we will provide open access to the slow positron beam housed at McMaster University: so-called OPEN-POS. Slow positron annihilation spectroscopy (PAS) has for many years provided unique and non-destructive characterization of materials and devices related to the nano-structure of interfaces, point defects and voids. PAS requires the delivery of a high flux of positrons to the material or system under study, and McMaster University houses one of only eight slow positron beams in the world devoted to Materials Science. We will expand the direct use of the positron facility to any Canadian academic (remote user) irrespective of their location, providing an increase in diversity of users (across gender, ethnicity, career-point, and geographical location). In this case we define “remote user” as an individual or group who have complete control of the PAS infrastructure and experiments performed thereon, but are not present at the infrastructure's immediate location. We describe an array of projects from users familiar with PAS, to those new to PAS and including those who are remote to the location of the slow positron beam. The projects include characterization of photonic films, semiconductor materials, 2-D films and photovoltaic devices. Immediate benefits of this work will be improvements in the performance and lowering of the cost of production of integrated optical circuits (used for powering the information superhighway); nanoelectronic circuits and sensors (used in the internet of things); and solar cells (critical in the fight against climate change). The specific request of this proposal is funds for the purchase of a high-flux 22Na positron source. The higher the flux, the greater the number of experiments and users that can be serviced. We have thus requested the highest flux source available. In the exploratory roll-out to be enabled by this proposal we will establish access for four remote users two are early-career researchers at McMaster with no PAS experience; one is experienced with PAS and located at another university in Ontario; one is not experienced with PAS and is located in a different province. Following successful preliminary roll-out, which we anticipate will take one year, our plan is to provide open access to OPEN-POS across Canada to all interested users. We will expand these ideas to accelerate the development of our OPEN-LAB model which will provide access to more infrastructure located at McMaster's central facilities.