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  • richardmitnick 10:02 am on June 2, 2023 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: "Understanding the Tantalizing Benefits of Tantalum for Improved Quantum Processors", , , , Coherence time is a measure of how long a qubit retains quantum information., , In addition tantalum is a superconductor which means it has no electrical resistance when cooled to sufficiently low temperatures and consequently can carry current without any energy loss., Material Sciences, , , , Researchers working to improve the performance of superconducting qubits have been experimenting using different base materials in an effort to increase the coherent lifetimes of qubits., Scientists decode the chemical profile of tantalum surface oxides to understand loss and improve qubit performance., Scientists discovered that using tantalum in superconducting qubits makes them perform better but no one has been able to determine why—until now., Tantalum also has a high melting point and is resistant to corrosion making it useful in many commercial applications., Tantalum is a unique and versatile metal. It is dense and hard and easy with which to work., Tantalum-based superconducting qubits have demonstrated record-long lifetimes of more than five times longer than the lifetimes of qubits made with niobium and aluminum.,   

    From The DOE’s Brookhaven National Laboratory: “Understanding the Tantalizing Benefits of Tantalum for Improved Quantum Processors” 

    From The DOE’s Brookhaven National Laboratory

    5.31.23
    Written by Denise Yazak

    Contact:
    Peter Genzer
    genzer@bnl.gov
    (631) 344-3174

    Scientists decode the chemical profile of tantalum surface oxides to understand loss and improve qubit performance.

    1
    Tantalum oxide (TaOx) being characterized using x-ray photoelectron spectroscopy. BNL.

    Whether it’s baking a cake, building a house, or developing a quantum device, the quality of the end product significantly depends on its ingredients or base materials. Researchers working to improve the performance of superconducting qubits, the foundation of quantum computers, have been experimenting using different base materials in an effort to increase the coherent lifetimes of qubits. The coherence time is a measure of how long a qubit retains quantum information, and thus a primary measure of performance. Recently, scientists discovered that using tantalum in superconducting qubits makes them perform better, but no one has been able to determine why—until now.

    Scientists from the Center for Functional Nanomaterials (CFN) [below], the National Synchrotron Light Source II (NSLS-II) [below], the Co-design Center for Quantum Advantage (C2QA), and Princeton University investigated the fundamental reasons that these qubits perform better by decoding the chemical profile of tantalum. The results of this work, which were recently published in the journal Advanced Science [below], will provide key knowledge for designing even better qubits in the future. CFN and NSLS-II are U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) Office of Science User Facilities at DOE’s Brookhaven National Laboratory. C2QA is a Brookhaven-led national quantum information science research center, of which Princeton University is a key partner.

    Finding the right ingredient

    Tantalum is a unique and versatile metal. It is dense, hard, and easy to work with. Tantalum also has a high melting point and is resistant to corrosion, making it useful in many commercial applications. In addition, tantalum is a superconductor, which means it has no electrical resistance when cooled to sufficiently low temperatures, and consequently can carry current without any energy loss.

    Tantalum-based superconducting qubits have demonstrated record-long lifetimes of more than half a millisecond. That is five times longer than the lifetimes of qubits made with niobium and aluminum, which are currently deployed in large-scale quantum processors.

    These properties make tantalum an excellent candidate material for building better qubits. Still, the goal of improving superconducting quantum computers has been hindered by a lack of understanding as to what is limiting qubit lifetimes, a process known as decoherence. Noise and microscopic sources of dielectric loss are generally thought to contribute; however, scientists are unsure exactly why and how.

    “The work in this paper is one of two parallel studies aiming to address a grand challenge in qubit fabrication,” explained Nathalie de Leon, an associate professor of electrical and computer engineering at Princeton University and the materials thrust leader for C2QA. “Nobody has proposed a microscopic, atomistic model for loss that explains all the observed behavior and then was able to show that their model limits a particular device. This requires measurement techniques that are precise and quantitative, as well as sophisticated data analysis.”

    Surprising results

    To get a better picture of the source of qubit decoherence, scientists at Princeton and CFN grew and chemically processed tantalum films on sapphire substrates. They then took these samples to the Spectroscopy Soft and Tender Beamlines (SST-1 and SST-2) at NSLS-II to study the tantalum oxide that formed on the surface using x-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS). XPS uses x-rays to kick electrons out of the sample and provides clues about the chemical properties and electronic state of atoms near the sample surface. The scientists hypothesized that the thickness and chemical nature of this tantalum oxide layer played a role in determining the qubit coherence, as tantalum has a thinner oxide layer compared to the niobium more typically used in qubits.

    “We measured these materials at the beamlines in order to better understand what was happening,” explained Andrew Walter, a lead beamline scientist in NSLS-II’s soft x-ray scattering & spectroscopy program. “There was an assumption that the tantalum oxide layer was fairly uniform, but our measurements showed that it’s not uniform at all. It’s always more interesting when you uncover an answer you don’t expect, because that’s when you learn something.”

    The team found several different kinds of tantalum oxides at the surface of the tantalum, which has prompted a new set of questions on the path to creating better superconducting qubits. Can these interfaces be modified to improve overall device performance, and which modifications would provide the most benefit? What kinds of surface treatments can be used to minimize loss?

    Embodying the spirit of codesign

    “It was inspiring to see experts of very different backgrounds coming together to solve a common problem,” said Mingzhao Liu, a materials scientist at CFN and the materials subthrust leader in C2QA. “This was a highly collaborative effort, pooling together the facilities, resources, and expertise shared between all of our facilities. From a materials science standpoint, it was exciting to create these samples and be an integral part of this research.”

    Walter said, “Work like this speaks to the way C2QA was built. The electrical engineers from Princeton University contributed a lot to device management, design, data analysis, and testing. The materials group at CFN grew and processed samples and materials. My group at NSLS-II characterized these materials and their electronic properties.”

    Having these specialized groups come together not only made the study move smoothly and more efficiently, but it gave the scientists an understanding of their work in a larger context. Students and postdocs were able to get invaluable experience in several different areas and contribute to this research in meaningful ways.

    “Sometimes, when materials scientists work with physicists, they’ll hand off their materials and wait to hear back regarding results,” said de Leon, “but our team was working hand-in-hand, developing new methods along the way that could be broadly used at the beamline going forward.”

    Advanced Science

    Figure 1.a) High angle annular dark field scanning transmission electron microscope image of the cross-section of a tantalum film on sapphire. The tantalum film has a BCC crystal structure and was grown in the (111) orientation on a c-plane sapphire substrate. An amorphous oxide layer can be seen on top of the tantalum at the tantalum air interface. b) Experimental results of the tantalum binding energy spectrum obtained from X-ray photo electron spectroscopy (XPS) performed using 760 eV incident photon energy. Each oxidation state of tantalum contributes a pair of peaks to the spectrum due tospin-orbit splitting. At the highest binding energy (26–30 eV), there is a pair of peaks corresponding to the Ta5+state. At the lowest binding energy, we see a pair of sharp asymmetric peaks corresponding to metallic tantalum (21–25 eV). c) Schematic explaining the physics behind variable energy X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (VEXPS). The red and blue dots correspond to photoelectrons excited from a surface oxidation state and bulk oxidation state of the tantalum films respectively. When low energy X-rays are incident on the film surface, photoelectrons are excited with low kinetic energy (depictedby a small tail on the dots). These low energy photoelectrons have a shorter mean free path so that only those emitted from the surface species (colored red) will exit the material and impinge on the detector. When high energy X-rays are incident on the film surface, photoelectrons with high kinetic energy are excited (depicted by a longer tail on the dots). These higher energy photoelectrons have comparatively longer mean free paths so that electrons from the bulk of the film will exit the material alongside electrons from the surface. In our experiment, the angle between the surface and the incident X-rays varies between 6°and 10°; the X-rays in this image are shown at a steeper angle for legibility.
    2

    Figure 2.Shirley background corrected XPS spectra of Ta4f binding energy obtained at three different incident photon energies. Left panel: with 760 eVX-ray photons, the Ta5+ peaks dominate over the Ta0 peaks. Middle panel: at 2200 eV photon energy, there is almost equal contribution of photoelectrons at Ta0and Ta5+. Right panel: At 5000 eV photon energy, the dominant photoelectron contribution is coming from Ta0. In all three plots there is non-zerointensity between the Ta5+ and metallic tantalum peaks, indicating minority tantalum oxidation states. The complete set of data and fits corresponding to all 17 incident X-ray energies is shown in Section S3.3 (Supporting Information). The data are fit with Gaussian profiles for the Ta5+, Ta3+, and Ta1+ species, and skewed Voigt profiles for the Ta0 and Ta0int. Included in the fit is also a Gaussian profile corresponding to the O2s peak; the amplitude ofthis peak is fixed to 5% of the measured O1s peak intensity.
    3

    See the science paper for instructive material with images.

    See the full article here .

    Comments are invited and will be appreciated, especially if the reader finds any errors which I can correct. Use “Reply”.


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    Please help promote STEM in your local schools.

    Stem Education Coalition

    One of ten national laboratories overseen and primarily funded by the The DOE Office of Science, The DOE’s Brookhaven National Laboratory conducts research in the physical, biomedical, and environmental sciences, as well as in energy technologies and national security. Brookhaven Lab also builds and operates major scientific facilities available to university, industry and government researchers. The Laboratory’s almost 3,000 scientists, engineers, and support staff are joined each year by more than 5,000 visiting researchers from around the world. Brookhaven is operated and managed for DOE’s Office of Science by Brookhaven Science Associates, a limited-liability company founded by Stony Brook University the largest academic user of Laboratory facilities, and Battelle, a nonprofit, applied science and technology organization.

    Research at BNL specializes in nuclear and high energy physics, energy science and technology, environmental and bioscience, nanoscience and national security. The 5300 acre campus contains several large research facilities, including the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider [below] and National Synchrotron Light Source II [below]. Seven Nobel prizes have been awarded for work conducted at Brookhaven lab.

    BNL is staffed by approximately 2,750 scientists, engineers, technicians, and support personnel, and hosts 4,000 guest investigators every year. The laboratory has its own police station, fire department, and ZIP code (11973). In total, the lab spans a 5,265-acre (21 km^2) area that is mostly coterminous with the hamlet of Upton, New York. BNL is served by a rail spur operated as-needed by the New York and Atlantic Railway. Co-located with the laboratory is the Upton, New York, forecast office of the National Weather Service.

    Major programs

    Although originally conceived as a nuclear research facility, Brookhaven Lab’s mission has greatly expanded. Its foci are now:

    Nuclear and high-energy physics
    Physics and chemistry of materials
    Environmental and climate research
    Nanomaterials
    Energy research
    Nonproliferation
    Structural biology
    Accelerator physics

    Operation

    Brookhaven National Lab was originally owned by the Atomic Energy Commission and is now owned by that agency’s successor, the United States Department of Energy (DOE). DOE subcontracts the research and operation to universities and research organizations. It is currently operated by Brookhaven Science Associates LLC, which is an equal partnership of Stony Brook University and Battelle Memorial Institute. From 1947 to 1998, it was operated by Associated Universities, Inc. (AUI), but AUI lost its contract in the wake of two incidents: a 1994 fire at the facility’s high-beam flux reactor that exposed several workers to radiation and reports in 1997 of a tritium leak into the groundwater of the Long Island Central Pine Barrens on which the facility sits.

    Foundations

    Following World War II, the US Atomic Energy Commission was created to support government-sponsored peacetime research on atomic energy. The effort to build a nuclear reactor in the American northeast was fostered largely by physicists Isidor Isaac Rabi and Norman Foster Ramsey Jr., who during the war witnessed many of their colleagues at Columbia University leave for new remote research sites following the departure of the Manhattan Project from its campus. Their effort to house this reactor near New York City was rivalled by a similar effort at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology to have a facility near Boston, Massachusetts. Involvement was quickly solicited from representatives of northeastern universities to the south and west of New York City such that this city would be at their geographic center. In March 1946 a nonprofit corporation was established that consisted of representatives from nine major research universities — Columbia University, Cornell University, Harvard University, Johns Hopkins University, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Princeton University, University of Pennsylvania, University of Rochester, and Yale University.

    Out of 17 considered sites in the Boston-Washington corridor, Camp Upton on Long Island was eventually chosen as the most suitable in consideration of space, transportation, and availability. The camp had been a training center from the US Army during both World War I and World War II. After the latter war, Camp Upton was deemed no longer necessary and became available for reuse. A plan was conceived to convert the military camp into a research facility.

    On March 21, 1947, the Camp Upton site was officially transferred from the U.S. War Department to the new U.S. Atomic Energy Commission (AEC), predecessor to the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE).

    Research and facilities

    Reactor history

    In 1947 construction began on the first nuclear reactor at Brookhaven, the Brookhaven Graphite Research Reactor. This reactor, which opened in 1950, was the first reactor to be constructed in the United States after World War II. The High Flux Beam Reactor operated from 1965 to 1999. In 1959 Brookhaven built the first US reactor specifically tailored to medical research, the Brookhaven Medical Research Reactor, which operated until 2000.

    Accelerator history

    In 1952 Brookhaven began using its first particle accelerator, the Cosmotron. At the time the Cosmotron was the world’s highest energy accelerator, being the first to impart more than 1 GeV of energy to a particle.

    BNL Cosmotron 1952-1966.

    The Cosmotron was retired in 1966, after it was superseded in 1960 by the new Alternating Gradient Synchrotron (AGS).

    BNL Alternating Gradient Synchrotron (AGS).

    The AGS was used in research that resulted in 3 Nobel prizes, including the discovery of the muon neutrino, the charm quark, and CP violation.

    In 1970 in BNL started the ISABELLE project to develop and build two proton intersecting storage rings.

    The groundbreaking for the project was in October 1978. In 1981, with the tunnel for the accelerator already excavated, problems with the superconducting magnets needed for the ISABELLE accelerator brought the project to a halt, and the project was eventually cancelled in 1983.

    The National Synchrotron Light Source operated from 1982 to 2014 and was involved with two Nobel Prize-winning discoveries. It has since been replaced by the National Synchrotron Light Source II. [below].

    BNL National Synchrotron Light Source.

    After ISABELLE’S cancellation, physicist at BNL proposed that the excavated tunnel and parts of the magnet assembly be used in another accelerator. In 1984 the first proposal for the accelerator now known as the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC)[below] was put forward. The construction got funded in 1991 and RHIC has been operational since 2000. One of the world’s only two operating heavy-ion colliders, RHIC is as of 2010 the second-highest-energy collider after the Large Hadron Collider (CH). RHIC is housed in a tunnel 2.4 miles (3.9 km) long and is visible from space.

    On January 9, 2020, it was announced by Paul Dabbar, undersecretary of the US Department of Energy Office of Science, that the BNL eRHIC design has been selected over the conceptual design put forward by DOE’s Thomas Jefferson National Accelerator Facility [Jlab] as the future Electron–ion collider (EIC) in the United States.

    In addition to the site selection, it was announced that the BNL EIC had acquired CD-0 from the Department of Energy. BNL’s eRHIC design proposes upgrading the existing Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider, which collides beams light to heavy ions including polarized protons, with a polarized electron facility, to be housed in the same tunnel.

    Other discoveries

    In 1958, Brookhaven scientists created one of the world’s first video games, Tennis for Two. In 1968 Brookhaven scientists patented Maglev, a transportation technology that utilizes magnetic levitation.

    Major facilities

    Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC), which was designed to research quark–gluon plasma and the sources of proton spin. Until 2009 it was the world’s most powerful heavy ion collider. It is the only collider of spin-polarized protons.

    Center for Functional Nanomaterials (CFN), used for the study of nanoscale materials.

    BNL National Synchrotron Light Source II, Brookhaven’s newest user facility, opened in 2015 to replace the National Synchrotron Light Source (NSLS), which had operated for 30 years. NSLS was involved in the work that won the 2003 and 2009 Nobel Prize in Chemistry.

    Alternating Gradient Synchrotron, a particle accelerator that was used in three of the lab’s Nobel prizes.
    Accelerator Test Facility, generates, accelerates and monitors particle beams.
    Tandem Van de Graaff, once the world’s largest electrostatic accelerator.

    Computational Science resources, including access to a massively parallel Blue Gene series supercomputer that is among the fastest in the world for scientific research, run jointly by Brookhaven National Laboratory and Stony Brook University-SUNY.

    Interdisciplinary Science Building, with unique laboratories for studying high-temperature superconductors and other materials important for addressing energy challenges.
    NASA Space Radiation Laboratory, where scientists use beams of ions to simulate cosmic rays and assess the risks of space radiation to human space travelers and equipment.

    Off-site contributions

    It is a contributing partner to the ATLAS experiment, one of the four detectors located at the The European Organization for Nuclear Research [La Organización Europea para la Investigación Nuclear][Organization européenne pour la recherche nucléaire] [Europäische Organization für Kernforschung](CH)[CERN] Large Hadron Collider(LHC). Credit: CERN.

    The European Organization for Nuclear Research [La Organización Europea para la Investigación Nuclear][Organization européenne pour la recherche nucléaire] [Europäische Organization für Kernforschung](CH)[CERN] map. Credit: CERN.

    It is currently operating at The European Organization for Nuclear Research [La Organización Europea para la Investigación Nuclear][Organization européenne pour la recherche nucléaire] [Europäische Organization für Kernforschung](CH) [CERN] near Geneva, Switzerland.

    Brookhaven was also responsible for the design of the Spallation Neutron Source at DOE’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory, Tennessee.

    DOE’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory Spallation Neutron Source annotated.

    Brookhaven plays a role in a range of neutrino research projects around the world, including the Daya Bay Neutrino Experiment (CN) nuclear power plant, approximately 52 kilometers northeast of Hong Kong and 45 kilometers east of Shenzhen, China.

    Daya Bay Neutrino Experiment (CN) nuclear power plant, approximately 52 kilometers northeast of Hong Kong and 45 kilometers east of Shenzhen, China .

     
  • richardmitnick 9:08 pm on June 1, 2023 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: "FOSW": Floating offshore wind, "How Fiber-Optic Sensing and New Materials Could Reduce the Cost of Floating Offshore Wind", , , , , Material Sciences, , Researchers are giving floating offshore wind turbines abilities to self-monitor and self-heal.,   

    From The DOE’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory: “How Fiber-Optic Sensing and New Materials Could Reduce the Cost of Floating Offshore Wind” 

    From The DOE’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory

    6.1.23
    Julie Bobyock
    Christina Procopiou

    1
    Shake table tests are used to mimic ocean waves and test turbine stability. They also test the ability of fiber optic sensing to measure the response of the turbines. Courtesy of Yuxin Wu.

    Researchers are giving floating offshore wind turbines abilities to self-monitor and self-heal.

    In shallow waters, offshore wind turbines are fixed to the ocean floor. However, in deep water areas where winds are typically stronger and have the capacity to reap more than double the energy, floating offshore wind turbines must be moored to the seabed where the ocean is too deep for fixed structures. Floating offshore wind (FOSW) is one of the most promising clean energy technologies with a potential market worth nearly $16 billion – but science and technology solutions are needed to help reduce the cost of developing, deploying, and maintaining these complex systems.

    Scientists at the Department of Energy’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) are developing sensing technologies consisting of fiber-optic cables, which could be installed on FOSW structures that have been planned off the California coast. This would allow structures to self-monitor damaging conditions that could lead to costly repairs and would also help gauge how FOSW impacts marine mammals by detecting their activity.

    In collaboration with experts in materials science, engineering, geophysics, and FOSW developers from around the world, Berkeley Lab scientist Yuxin Wu is now working to develop solutions to reduce the cost of FOSW development and deployment, while minimizing potential environmental impacts.

    In collaboration with experts in materials science, engineering, geophysics, and FOSW developers from around the world, Berkeley Lab scientist Yuxin Wu is now working to develop solutions to reduce the cost of FOSW development and deployment, while minimizing potential environmental impacts.
    ________________________________________________________________________________________
    Q. What is the biggest obstacle to expanding floating offshore wind technologies?

    Wu: So far, there have been few FOSW deployments because the technology is in the early stages of development. Currently, no such systems have been deployed anywhere near 1000 meters in depth. We want to leverage scientific innovation by co-designing structural materials that are better able to withstand harsh marine environments and extreme weather events. And we want to add distributed fiber optic sensing to FOSW systems to enable systems to self monitor in real time for potential problems, a capability that could prolong a system’s lifespan and lower operating and maintenance costs.

    Q. How does your team apply fiber-optic sensing to these innovations?

    Wu: A fiber cable has a glass core that allows you to send an optical signal at the speed of light; when there is any vibration, strain, or change in temperature of the material that is being monitored, that information will be carried in the light signal that is scattered back. When attached to or embedded within the wind turbine structure, this gives it a “nervous system” which allows it to “hear” and “feel.” The fiber is able to monitor surrounding acoustic signals, such as whale calls, which can help scientists assess potential impacts to large marine mammals from FOSW operations.

    We’ve been testing the deployment of this sensing technology to structural components – such as towers and turbines – to monitor physical and mechanical conditions experienced by the structure itself, like temperature or strain. Our research so far has focused on testing fiber optics on the tower and gearbox, some of the most expensive components where there is benefit to identifying damage before it leads to problems.

    1
    Credit: https://environmentamerica.org

    Q. How important is materials science to reducing the cost of floating offshore wind systems?

    Wu: By revealing what is happening within a FOSW system in real time, fiber-optic sensing gives us the knowledge needed to develop more resilient, cost-effective materials at the system level. Designing FOSW systems at lower cost and to withstand harsh marine environments requires cutting-edge materials science combined with computing science to produce better materials and to effectively simulate how the materials perform. Materials can be developed to give the structures self-healing capabilities; for example, seawater intruding into a crack in concrete triggers reactions to seal the crack without interventions.

    We are partnering with experts in materials science and simulations from the molecular to structural scale to bring about innovations that have great potential for future deep-water floating systems because of their large cost-saving potential, local producibility, better performance, and environmental sustainability. DOE user facilities at Berkeley Lab, such as the Molecular Foundry, Advanced Light Source, and National Energy Research Scientific Computing Center, play key roles in facilitating innovations in our research.

    Q. These systems are far offshore, making them challenging to access for maintenance. How can technology help track and predict their performance when people aren’t nearby to monitor operations?

    Wu: Digital twins are representations of structures made using advanced computer modeling, often jointly with real-time monitoring data, that scientists can use to control, simulate, and monitor how the FOSW system would respond to different weather or marine conditions. For example, we can simulate conditions of a hurricane and see exactly how the system would function under this extreme weather – right from our desktop computers. With real-time data feeding into the digital twins, system response to actual “on-the-water” field conditions can be monitored to support decision-making, for example when to send a crew to conduct system inspection. This could significantly reduce costs by avoiding unnecessary trips, and by allowing proactive maintenance of the system before larger, expensive failures.

    Last summer, our team used shake table testing of an actual turbine at the Pacific Earthquake Engineering Research Center at UC Berkeley’s Richmond Field Station, to test the ability of the fiber optic sensing to monitor how the turbines would respond to wave movements far offshore. The shake test helps evaluate and optimize deployment of sensors which eventually will be sitting on structures in the middle of the ocean and autonomously communicating data to land via fiber cables.

    3
    Turbine testing at the Richmond Field Station. (Credit: Courtesy of Yuxin Wu)

    Q. How important is collaboration to reducing the cost of floating offshore wind?

    Wu: DOE’s floating offshore wind earthshot has an ambitious goal of 70% cost reduction by 2035. This requires a system-level approach that optimizes all steps through the entire lifecycle of FOSW from material design, structural construction, deployment, operation, and maintenance. Partnering with institutions and industries with different expertise allows us to efficiently develop these new and complex technologies that can help shift the nation’s energy economy to one built on clean, renewable sources.

    See the full article here .

    Comments are invited and will be appreciated, especially if the reader finds any errors which I can correct. Use “Reply”.

    five-ways-keep-your-child-safe-school-shootings

    Please help promote STEM in your local schools.

    Stem Education Coalition

    LBNL campus

    Bringing Science Solutions to the World

    In the world of science, The Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) is synonymous with “excellence.” Thirteen Nobel prizes are associated with Berkeley Lab. Seventy Lab scientists are members of the The National Academy of Sciences, one of the highest honors for a scientist in the United States. Thirteen of our scientists have won the National Medal of Science, our nation’s highest award for lifetime achievement in fields of scientific research. Eighteen of our engineers have been elected to the The National Academy of Engineering, and three of our scientists have been elected into The Institute of Medicine. In addition, Berkeley Lab has trained thousands of university science and engineering students who are advancing technological innovations across the nation and around the world.

    Berkeley Lab is a member of the national laboratory system supported by The DOE through its Office of Science. It is managed by the University of California and is charged with conducting unclassified research across a wide range of scientific disciplines. Located on a 202-acre site in the hills above The University of California-Berkeley campus that offers spectacular views of the San Francisco Bay, Berkeley Lab employs approximately 3,232 scientists, engineers and support staff. The Lab’s total costs for FY 2014 were $785 million. A recent study estimates the Laboratory’s overall economic impact through direct, indirect and induced spending on the nine counties that make up the San Francisco Bay Area to be nearly $700 million annually. The Lab was also responsible for creating 5,600 jobs locally and 12,000 nationally. The overall economic impact on the national economy is estimated at $1.6 billion a year. Technologies developed at Berkeley Lab have generated billions of dollars in revenues, and thousands of jobs. Savings as a result of Berkeley Lab developments in lighting and windows, and other energy-efficient technologies, have also been in the billions of dollars.

    Berkeley Lab was founded in 1931 by Ernest Orlando Lawrence, a University of California-Berkeley physicist who won the 1939 Nobel Prize in physics for his invention of the cyclotron, a circular particle accelerator that opened the door to high-energy physics. It was Lawrence’s belief that scientific research is best done through teams of individuals with different fields of expertise, working together. His teamwork concept is a Berkeley Lab legacy that continues today.

    History

    1931–1941

    The laboratory was founded on August 26, 1931, by Ernest Lawrence, as the Radiation Laboratory of the University of California-Berkeley, associated with the Physics Department. It centered physics research around his new instrument, the cyclotron, a type of particle accelerator for which he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1939.

    LBNL 88 inch cyclotron.

    LBNL 88 inch cyclotron.

    Throughout the 1930s, Lawrence pushed to create larger and larger machines for physics research, courting private philanthropists for funding. He was the first to develop a large team to build big projects to make discoveries in basic research. Eventually these machines grew too large to be held on the university grounds, and in 1940 the lab moved to its current site atop the hill above campus. Part of the team put together during this period includes two other young scientists who went on to establish large laboratories; J. Robert Oppenheimer founded The DOE’s Los Alamos Laboratory, and Robert Wilson founded The DOE’s Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory.

    1942–1950

    Leslie Groves visited Lawrence’s Radiation Laboratory in late 1942 as he was organizing the Manhattan Project, meeting J. Robert Oppenheimer for the first time. Oppenheimer was tasked with organizing the nuclear bomb development effort and founded today’s Los Alamos National Laboratory to help keep the work secret. At the RadLab, Lawrence and his colleagues developed the technique of electromagnetic enrichment of uranium using their experience with cyclotrons. The “calutrons” (named after the University) became the basic unit of the massive Y-12 facility in Oak Ridge, Tennessee. Lawrence’s lab helped contribute to what have been judged to be the three most valuable technology developments of the war (the atomic bomb, proximity fuse, and radar). The cyclotron, whose construction was stalled during the war, was finished in November 1946. The Manhattan Project shut down two months later.

    1951–2018

    After the war, the Radiation Laboratory became one of the first laboratories to be incorporated into the Atomic Energy Commission (AEC) (now The Department of Energy . The most highly classified work remained at Los Alamos, but the RadLab remained involved. Edward Teller suggested setting up a second lab similar to Los Alamos to compete with their designs. This led to the creation of an offshoot of the RadLab (now The DOE’s Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory) in 1952. Some of the RadLab’s work was transferred to the new lab, but some classified research continued at Berkeley Lab until the 1970s, when it became a laboratory dedicated only to unclassified scientific research.

    Shortly after the death of Lawrence in August 1958, the UC Radiation Laboratory (both branches) was renamed the Lawrence Radiation Laboratory. The Berkeley location became the Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory in 1971, although many continued to call it the RadLab. Gradually, another shortened form came into common usage, LBNL. Its formal name was amended to Ernest Orlando Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory in 1995, when “National” was added to the names of all DOE labs. “Ernest Orlando” was later dropped to shorten the name. Today, the lab is commonly referred to as “Berkeley Lab”.

    The Alvarez Physics Memos are a set of informal working papers of the large group of physicists, engineers, computer programmers, and technicians led by Luis W. Alvarez from the early 1950s until his death in 1988. Over 1700 memos are available on-line, hosted by the Laboratory.

    The lab remains owned by the Department of Energy , with management from the University of California. Companies such as Intel were funding the lab’s research into computing chips.

    Science mission

    From the 1950s through the present, Berkeley Lab has maintained its status as a major international center for physics research, and has also diversified its research program into almost every realm of scientific investigation. Its mission is to solve the most pressing and profound scientific problems facing humanity, conduct basic research for a secure energy future, understand living systems to improve the environment, health, and energy supply, understand matter and energy in the universe, build and safely operate leading scientific facilities for the nation, and train the next generation of scientists and engineers.

    The Laboratory’s 20 scientific divisions are organized within six areas of research: Computing Sciences; Physical Sciences; Earth and Environmental Sciences; Biosciences; Energy Sciences; and Energy Technologies. Berkeley Lab has six main science thrusts: advancing integrated fundamental energy science; integrative biological and environmental system science; advanced computing for science impact; discovering the fundamental properties of matter and energy; accelerators for the future; and developing energy technology innovations for a sustainable future. It was Lawrence’s belief that scientific research is best done through teams of individuals with different fields of expertise, working together. His teamwork concept is a Berkeley Lab tradition that continues today.

    Berkeley Lab operates five major National User Facilities for the DOE Office of Science:

    The Advanced Light Source (ALS) is a synchrotron light source with 41 beam lines providing ultraviolet, soft x-ray, and hard x-ray light to scientific experiments.

    The DOE’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory Advanced Light Source.
    The ALS is one of the world’s brightest sources of soft x-rays, which are used to characterize the electronic structure of matter and to reveal microscopic structures with elemental and chemical specificity. About 2,500 scientist-users carry out research at ALS every year. Berkeley Lab is proposing an upgrade of ALS which would increase the coherent flux of soft x-rays by two-three orders of magnitude.

    Berkeley Lab Laser Accelerator (BELLA) Center

    The DOE Joint Genome Institute supports genomic research in support of the DOE missions in alternative energy, global carbon cycling, and environmental management. The JGI’s partner laboratories are Berkeley Lab, DOE’s Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, DOE’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL), DOE’s Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL), and the HudsonAlpha Institute for Biotechnology . The JGI’s central role is the development of a diversity of large-scale experimental and computational capabilities to link sequence to biological insights relevant to energy and environmental research. Approximately 1,200 scientist-users take advantage of JGI’s capabilities for their research every year.

    LBNL Molecular Foundry

    The LBNL Molecular Foundry is a multidisciplinary nanoscience research facility. Its seven research facilities focus on Imaging and Manipulation of Nanostructures; Nanofabrication; Theory of Nanostructured Materials; Inorganic Nanostructures; Biological Nanostructures; Organic and Macromolecular Synthesis; and Electron Microscopy. Approximately 700 scientist-users make use of these facilities in their research every year.

    The DOE’s NERSC National Energy Research Scientific Computing Center is the scientific computing facility that provides large-scale computing for the DOE’s unclassified research programs. Its current systems provide over 3 billion computational hours annually. NERSC supports 6,000 scientific users from universities, national laboratories, and industry.

    DOE’s NERSC National Energy Research Scientific Computing Center at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory.

    Cray Cori II supercomputer at National Energy Research Scientific Computing Center at DOE’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, named after Gerty Cori, the first American woman to win a Nobel Prize in science.

    NERSC Hopper Cray XE6 supercomputer.

    NERSC GPFS for Life Sciences.

    The Genepool system is a cluster dedicated to the DOE Joint Genome Institute’s computing needs. Denovo is a smaller test system for Genepool that is primarily used by NERSC staff to test new system configurations and software.

    NERSC PDSF computer cluster in 2003.

    PDSF is a networked distributed computing cluster designed primarily to meet the detector simulation and data analysis requirements of physics, astrophysics and nuclear science collaborations.

    Cray Shasta Perlmutter SC18 AMD Epyc Nvidia pre-exascale supercomputer.

    NERSC is a DOE Office of Science User Facility.

    The DOE’s Energy Science Network is a high-speed network infrastructure optimized for very large scientific data flows. ESNet provides connectivity for all major DOE sites and facilities, and the network transports roughly 35 petabytes of traffic each month.

    Berkeley Lab is the lead partner in the DOE’s Joint Bioenergy Institute (JBEI), located in Emeryville, California. Other partners are the DOE’s Sandia National Laboratory, the University of California (UC) campuses of Berkeley and Davis, the Carnegie Institution for Science , and DOE’s Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL). JBEI’s primary scientific mission is to advance the development of the next generation of biofuels – liquid fuels derived from the solar energy stored in plant biomass. JBEI is one of three new U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) Bioenergy Research Centers (BRCs).

    Berkeley Lab has a major role in two DOE Energy Innovation Hubs. The mission of the Joint Center for Artificial Photosynthesis (JCAP) is to find a cost-effective method to produce fuels using only sunlight, water, and carbon dioxide. The lead institution for JCAP is the California Institute of Technology and Berkeley Lab is the second institutional center. The mission of the Joint Center for Energy Storage Research (JCESR) is to create next-generation battery technologies that will transform transportation and the electricity grid. DOE’s Argonne National Laboratory leads JCESR and Berkeley Lab is a major partner.

     
    • elevatorsh73078 7:58 am on June 2, 2023 Permalink | Reply

      “From The DOE’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory” is an intriguing and credible source of information. This comment emphasizes the significance of this source, which represents the prestigious Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, a renowned institution known for its scientific research and contributions. By referencing this source, readers can expect reliable and cutting-edge insights across a range of topics in fields such as energy, environmental sciences, materials research, and more. With a focus on advancing scientific knowledge and addressing real-world challenges, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory’s work holds significant value for both the scientific community and the general public. So, delve into the resources provided by this esteemed laboratory and explore the wealth of knowledge and innovation they offer.

      Like

  • richardmitnick 10:54 am on May 26, 2023 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: "Epitaxial strain": effectively stretching the metals at the atomic level, "Stretching metals allows researchers to create materials for quantum and electronic and spintronic applications", , “Stubborn” metals oxides such as those based on ruthenium or iridium play a crucial role in numerous applications in quantum information sciences and electronics., Breakthrough that makes it easier to create high-quality metal oxide thin films out of “stubborn” metals that have historically been difficult to synthesize in an atomically precise manner., Material Sciences, , , , The new method has the potential to generate atomically-precise oxides of any hard-to-oxidize metal., , This research has immense potential for controlling oxidation-reduction pathways in various applications including catalysis and chemical reactions occurring in batteries or fuel cells., This research paves the way for scientists to develop better materials for various next-generation applications including quantum computing; microelectronics; sensors and energy catalysis.   

    From The College of Science and Engineering At The University of Minnesota-Twin Cities : “Stretching metals allows researchers to create materials for quantum and electronic and spintronic applications” 

    2

    From The College of Science and Engineering

    At

    u-minnesota-bloc

    The University of Minnesota-Twin Cities

    5.22.23
    University Public Relations
    (612) 624-5551
    unews@umn.edu

    Savannah Erdman
    University Public Relations
    612-624-5551
    erdma158@umn.edu

    1
    Professor Bharat Jalan and Ph.D. candidate Sreejith Nair. Credit: University of Minnesota.

    A University of Minnesota-led team has developed a first-of-its-kind, breakthrough method that makes it easier to create high-quality metal oxide thin films out of “stubborn” metals that have historically been difficult to synthesize in an atomically precise manner. This research paves the way for scientists to develop better materials for various next-generation applications including quantum computing, microelectronics, sensors and energy catalysis.

    The researchers’ paper is published in Nature Nanotechnology [below].

    “This breakthrough represents a significant advancement with far-reaching implications in a broad range of fields,” said Bharat Jalan, senior author on the paper and a professor in the College of Science and Engineering. “Not only does it provide a means to achieve atomically-precise synthesis of quantum materials, but it also holds immense potential for controlling oxidation-reduction pathways in various applications including catalysis and chemical reactions occurring in batteries or fuel cells.”

    “Stubborn” metals oxides, such as those based on ruthenium or iridium, play a crucial role in numerous applications in quantum information sciences and electronics. However, converting them into thin films has been a challenge for researchers due to the inherent difficulties in oxidizing metals using high-vacuum processes.

    While attempting to synthesize metal oxides using conventional molecular beam epitaxy, a low-energy technique that generates single layers of material in an ultra-high vacuum chamber, the researchers stumbled upon a groundbreaking revelation. They found that incorporating a concept called “epitaxial strain”—effectively stretching the metals at the atomic level—significantly simplifies the oxidation process of these stubborn metals.

    “The current synthesis approaches have limits, and we need to find new ways to push those limits further so that we can make better quality materials,” said Sreejith Nair, first author of the paper and a Ph.D. student in the College of Science and Engineering. “Our new method of stretching the material at the atomic scale is one way to improve the performance of the current technology.”

    Although the research team used iridium and ruthenium as examples, their method has the potential to generate atomically-precise oxides of any hard-to-oxidize metal.

    The researchers worked with collaborators at Auburn University, the University of Delaware, the DOE’s Brookhaven National Laboratory, the DOE’s Argonne National Laboratory and fellow University of Minnesota Professor Andre Mkhoyan’s lab to verify their method.

    “When we looked at these metal oxide films closely using very powerful electron microscopes, we captured the arrangements of the atoms and determined their types,” Mkhoyan explained. “Sure enough, they were nicely and periodically arranged as they should be in these crystalline films.”

    This research was funded primarily by the United States Department of Energy (DOE), the Air Force Office of Scientific Research (AFOSR), and the University of Minnesota’s Materials Research Science and Engineering Center (MRSEC).

    Nature Nanotechnology

    See the full article here .

    Comments are invited and will be appreciated, especially if the reader finds any errors which I can correct. Use “Reply”.

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    Please help promote STEM in your local schools.

    Stem Education Coalition

    2

    The College of Science and Engineering (CSE) is one of the colleges of the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis, Minnesota. On July 1, 2010, the college was officially renamed from the Institute of Technology (IT). It was created in 1935 by bringing together the University’s programs in engineering, mining, architecture, and chemistry. Today, CSE contains 12 departments and 24 research centers that focus on engineering, the physical sciences, and mathematics.

    Departments

    Aerospace Engineering and Mechanics
    Biomedical Engineering
    Chemical Engineering and Materials Science
    Chemistry
    Civil, Environmental, and GeoEngineering
    Computer Science and Engineering
    Earth Sciences (formerly called Geology and Geophysics)
    Electrical and Computer Engineering
    Industrial and Systems Engineering
    Mathematics
    Mechanical Engineering
    Physics and Astronomy
    Additionally, CSE pairs with other departments at the University to offer degree-granting programs in:
    Bioproducts and Biosystems Engineering, with CFANS (formerly two departments: Biosystems and Agricultural Engineering, and Bio-based Products)
    Statistics
    And two other CSE units grant advanced degrees:
    Technological Leadership Institute (formerly Center for the Development of Technological Leadership)
    History of Science and Technology

    Research centers

    BioTechnology Institute
    Characterization Facility
    Charles Babbage Institute – CBI website
    Digital Technology Center
    William I. Fine Theoretical Physics Institute
    Industrial Partnership for Research in Interfacial and Materials Engineering
    Institute for Mathematics and its Applications
    Minnesota Nano Center
    NSF Engineering Research Center for Compact and Efficient Fluid Power
    NSF Materials Research Science and Engineering Center
    NSF Multi-Axial Subassemblage Testing (MAST) System
    NSF National Center for Earth-surface Dynamics (NCED)
    The Polar Geospatial Center
    Center for Transportation Studies
    University of Minnesota Supercomputing Institute
    GroupLens Center for Social and Human-Centered Computing

    Educational centers

    History of Science and Technology
    School of Mathematics Center for (K-12) Educational Programs
    Technological Leadership Institute
    UNITE Distributed Learning

    u-minnesota-campus-twin-cities

    The University of Minnesota Twin Cities is a public research university in Minneapolis and Saint Paul, MN. The Twin Cities campus comprises locations in Minneapolis and St. Paul approximately 3 miles (4.8 km) apart, and the St. Paul location is in neighboring Falcon Heights. The Twin Cities campus is the oldest and largest in The University of Minnesota (US) system and has the sixth-largest main campus student body in the United States, with 51,327 students in 2019-20. It is the flagship institution of the University of Minnesota System, and is organized into 19 colleges, schools, and other major academic units.

    The Minnesota Territorial Legislature drafted a charter for The University of Minnesota as a territorial university in 1851, seven years before Minnesota became a state. Today, the university is classified among “R1: Doctoral Universities – Very high research activity”. The University of Minnesota is a member of The Association of American Universities (US) and is ranked 17th in research activity, with $954 million in research and development expenditures in the fiscal year 2018. In 2001, the University of Minnesota was included in a list of Public Ivy universities, which includes publicly funded universities thought to provide a quality of education comparable to that of the Ivy League.

    University of Minnesota faculty, alumni, and researchers have won 26 Nobel Prizes and three Pulitzer Prizes. Among its alumni, the university counts 25 Rhodes Scholars, seven Marshall Scholars, 20 Truman Scholars, and 127 Fulbright recipients. The University of Minnesota also has Guggenheim Fellowship, Carnegie Fellowship, and MacArthur Fellowship holders, as well as past and present graduates and faculty belonging to The American Academy of Arts and Sciences , The National Academy of Sciences, The National Academy of Medicine, and The National Academy of Engineering. Notable University of Minnesota alumni include two vice presidents of the United States, Hubert Humphrey and Walter Mondale, and Bob Dylan, who received the 2016 Nobel Prize in Literature.

    The Minnesota Golden Gophers compete in 21 intercollegiate sports in the NCAA Division I Big Ten Conference and have won 29 national championships. As of 2021, Minnesota’s current and former students have won a total of 76 Olympic medals.

    The University of Minnesota was founded in Minneapolis in 1851 as a college preparatory school, seven years prior to Minnesota’s statehood. It struggled in its early years and relied on donations to stay open from donors including South Carolina Governor William Aiken Jr.

    In 1867, the university received land grant status through the Morrill Act of 1862.

    An 1876 donation from flour miller John S. Pillsbury is generally credited with saving the school. Since then, Pillsbury has become known as “The Father of the University.” Pillsbury Hall is named in his honor.

    Academics

    The university is organized into 19 colleges, schools, and other major academic units:

    Center for Allied Health Programs
    College of Biological Sciences
    College of Continuing and Professional Studies
    School of Dentistry
    College of Design
    College of Education and Human Development
    College of Food, Agricultural and Natural Resource Sciences
    Graduate School
    Law School
    College of Liberal Arts
    Carlson School of Management
    Medical School
    School of Nursing
    College of Pharmacy
    Hubert H. Humphrey School of Public Affairs
    School of Public Health
    College of Science and Engineering
    College of Veterinary Medicine

    Institutes and centers

    Six university-wide interdisciplinary centers and institutes work across collegiate lines:

    Center for Cognitive Sciences
    Consortium on Law and Values in Health, Environment, and the Life Sciences
    Institute for Advanced Study, University of Minnesota
    Institute for Translational Neuroscience
    Institute on the Environment
    Minnesota Population Center

    In 2021, the University of Minnesota was ranked as 40th best university in the world by The Academic Ranking of World Universities (ARWU), which assesses academic and research performance. The same 2021 ranking by subject placed The University of Minnesota’s ecology program as 2nd best in the world, its management program as 10th best, its biotechnology program as 11th best, mechanical engineering and medical technology programs as 14th best, law and psychology programs as 19th best, and veterinary sciences program as 20th best. The Center for World University Rankings (CWUR) for 2021-22 ranked Minnesota 46th in the world and 26th in the United States. The 2021 Nature Index, which assesses the institutions that dominate high quality research output, ranked Minnesota 53rd in the world based on research publication data from 2020. U.S. News and World Report ranked Minnesota as the 47th best global university for 2021. The 2022 Times Higher Education World University Rankings placed Minnesota 86th worldwide, based primarily on teaching, research, knowledge transfer and international outlook.

    In 2021, The University of Minnesota was ranked as the 24th best university in the United States by The Academic Ranking of World Universities, and 20th in the United States in Washington Monthly’s 2021 National University Rankings. The University of Minnesota’s undergraduate program was ranked 68th among national universities by U.S. News and World Report for 2022, and 26th in the nation among public colleges and universities. The same publication ranked The University of Minnesota’s graduate Carlson School of Management as 28th in the nation among business schools, and 6th in the nation for its information systems graduate program. Other graduate schools ranked highly by U.S. News and World Report for 2022 include The University of Minnesota Law School at 22nd, The University of Minnesota Medical School, which was 4th for family medicine and 5th for primary care, The University of Minnesota College of Pharmacy, which ranked 3rd, The Hubert H. Humphrey School of Public Affairs, which ranked 9th, The University of Minnesota College of Education and Human Development, which ranked 10th for education psychology and special education, and The University of Minnesota School of Public Health, which ranked 10th.

    In 2019, The Center for Measuring University Performance ranked The University of Minnesota 16th in the nation in terms of total research, 29th in endowment assets, 22nd in annual giving, 28th in the number of National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine memberships, 18th in its number of faculty awards, and 14th in its number of National Merit Scholars. Minnesota is listed as a “Public Ivy” in 2001 Greenes’ Guides The Public Ivies: America’s Flagship Public Universities.

    Media

    Print

    The Minnesota Daily has been published twice a week during the normal school season since the fall semester 2016. It is printed weekly during the summer. The Daily is operated by an autonomous organization run entirely by students. It was first published on May 1, 1900. Besides everyday news coverage, the paper has also published special issues, such as the Grapevine Awards, Ski-U-Mah, the Bar & Beer Guide, Sex-U-Mah, and others.

    A long-defunct but fondly remembered humor magazine, Ski-U-Mah, was published from about 1930 to 1950. It launched the career of novelist and scriptwriter Max Shulman.

    A relative newcomer to the university’s print media community is The Wake Student Magazine, a weekly that covers UMN-related stories and provides a forum for student expression. It was founded in November 2001 in an effort to diversify campus media and achieved student group status in February 2002. Students from many disciplines do all of the reporting, writing, editing, illustration, photography, layout, and business management for the publication. The magazine was founded by James DeLong and Chris Ruen. The Wake was named the nation’s best campus publication (2006) by The Independent Press Association.

    Additionally, The Wake publishes Liminal, a literary journal begun in 2005. Liminal was created in the absence of an undergraduate literary journal and continues to bring poetry and prose to the university community.

    The Wake has faced a number of challenges during its existence, due in part to the reliance on student fees funding. In April 2004, after the Student Services Fees Committee had initially declined to fund it, the needed $60,000 in funding was restored, allowing the magazine to continue publishing. It faced further challenges in 2005, when its request for additional funding to publish weekly was denied and then partially restored.

    In 2005 conservatives on campus began formulating a new monthly magazine named The Minnesota Republic. The first issue was released in February 2006, and funding by student service fees started in September 2006.

    Radio

    The campus radio station, KUOM “Radio K,” broadcasts an eclectic variety of independent music during the day on 770 kHz AM. Its 5,000-watt signal has a range of 80 miles (130 km), but shuts down at dusk because of Federal Communications Commission regulations. In 2003, the station added a low-power (8-watt) signal on 106.5 MHz FM overnight and on weekends. In 2005, a 10-watt translator began broadcasting from Falcon Heights on 100.7 FM at all times. Radio K also streams its content at http://www.radiok.org. With roots in experimental transmissions that began before World War I, the station received the first AM broadcast license in the state on January 13, 1922, and began broadcasting as WLB, changing to the KUOM call sign about two decades later. The station had an educational format until 1993, when it merged with a smaller campus-only music station to become what is now known as Radio K. A small group of full-time employees are joined by over 20 part-time student employees who oversee the station. Most of the on-air talent consists of student volunteers.

    Television

    Some television programs made on campus have been broadcast on local PBS station KTCI channel 17. Several episodes of Great Conversations have been made since 2002, featuring one-on-one discussions between University faculty and experts brought in from around the world. Tech Talk was a show meant to help people who feel intimidated by modern technology, including cellular phones and computers.

     
  • richardmitnick 8:28 am on May 22, 2023 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: "Team uses 3D printing to strengthen a key material in aerospace and energy-generation applications", , Material Sciences, , Nuclear Science & Engineering, ,   

    From The Materials Research Laboratory At The Massachusetts Institute of Technology: “Team uses 3D printing to strengthen a key material in aerospace and energy-generation applications” 

    From The Materials Research Laboratory

    At

    The Massachusetts Institute of Technology

    5.19.23
    Elizabeth A. Thomson | Materials Research Laboratory

    The approach could improve the performance of many other materials as well.

    1
    An MIT-led team reports a simple, inexpensive way to strengthen a material key to applications in aerospace and nuclear energy generation. The MIT beavers and other shapes in this photo were created using the new technique. Photo: Alexander O’Brien.

    2
    Co-first authors of a paper on the work are (from left to right): Jian Liu of the University of Massachusetts-Amherst, and Emre Tekoğlu and Alexander O’Brien, both of MIT.

    The materials key to many important applications in aerospace and energy generation must be able to withstand extreme conditions such as high temperatures and tensile stresses without failing. Now a team of MIT-led engineers reports a simple, inexpensive way to strengthen one of the key materials used today in such applications.

    Further, the team believes that their general approach, which involves the 3D printing of a metallic powder strengthened with ceramic nanowires, could be used to improve many other materials. “There is always a significant need for the development of more capable materials for extreme environments. We believe that this method has great potential for other materials in the future,” says Ju Li, the Battelle Energy Alliance Professor in Nuclear Engineering and a professor in MIT’s Department of Materials Science and Engineering (DMSE).

    Li, who is also affiliated with the Materials Research Laboratory (MRL), is one of three corresponding authors of a paper on the work that appeared in the April 5 issue of Additive Manufacturing [below]. The other corresponding authors are Professor Wen Chen of the University of Massachusetts-Amherst and Professor A. John Hart of the MIT Department of Mechanical Engineering.

    Co-first authors of the paper are Emre Tekoğlu, an MIT postdoc in the Department of Nuclear Science and Engineering (NSE); Alexander D. O’Brien, an NSE graduate student; and Jian Liu of UMass-Amherst. Additional authors are Baoming Wang, an MIT postdoc in DMSE; Sina Kavak of Istanbul Technical University; Yong Zhang, a research specialist at the MRL; So Yeon Kim, a DMSE graduate student; Shitong Wang, an NSE graduate student; and Duygu Agaogullari of Istanbul Technical University.

    Toward better performance

    The team’s approach begins with Inconel 718, a popular “superalloy,” or metal capable of withstanding extreme conditions such as temperatures of 700 degrees Celsius (about 1,300 degrees Fahrenheit). They mill commercial Inconel 718 powders with a small amount of ceramic nanowires, resulting in “the homogeneous decoration of nano-ceramics on the surfaces of Inconel particles,” the team writes.

    The resulting powder is then used to create parts via laser powder bed fusion, a form of 3D printing. That process involves printing thin layers of powder that are each exposed to a laser that moves across the powder, melting it in a specific pattern. Then another layer of powder is spread on top, and the process repeats with the laser moving to melt the pattern for the new layer and bond it with the layer below. The overall process can produce complicated 3D parts.

    The researchers found that parts made this way with their new powder have significantly less porosity and fewer cracks than parts made of Inconel 718 alone. And that, in turn, leads to significantly stronger parts that also have a number of other advantages. For example, they are more ductile — or stretchable — and have much better resistance to radiation and high-temperature loading.

    Plus, the process itself is not expensive because “it works with existing 3D printing machines. Just use our powder and you get much better performance,” says Li.

    Xu Song, an assistant professor at the Chinese University of Hong Kong who was not involved in the work, comments: “In this paper, the authors propose a new method for printing metal matrix composites of Inconel 718 reinforced by [ceramic] nanowires. The in-situ dissolution of the ceramic that is induced by the laser melting process has enhanced the thermal resistance and strength of Inconel 718. Moreover, the in-situ reinforcements reduced the grain size and got rid of flaws. Future 3D printing of metal alloys, including modification for high-reflectivity copper and fracture suppression for superalloys, can clearly benefit from this technique.”

    A huge new space

    Li says the work “could open a huge new space for alloy design” because the cooling rate of ultrathin 3D-printed layers of metal alloys is much faster than the rate for bulk parts created using conventional melt-solidification processes. As a result, “many of the rules on chemical composition that apply to bulk casting don’t seem to apply to this kind of 3D printing. So we have a much bigger composition space to explore for the base metal with ceramic additions.”

    Emre Tekoğlu, one of the lead authors of the Additive Manufacturing paper, says, “This composition was one of the first ones we decided on, so it was very exciting to get these results in real life. There is still a vast exploration space. We will keep exploring new Inconel composite formulations to end up with materials that could withstand more extreme environments.”

    Alexander O’Brien, another lead author, says, “The precision and scalability that comes with 3D printing has opened up a world of new possibilities for materials design. Our results here are an exciting early step in a process that will surely have a major impact on design for nuclear, aerospace, and all energy generation in the future.”

    This work was supported by Eni S.p.A. through the MIT Energy Initiative, the National Science Foundation, and ARPA-E.

    Additive Manufacturing

    Graphical Abstract
    3

    See the full article here .


    five-ways-keep-your-child-safe-school-shootings
    Please help promote STEM in your local schools.

    Stem Education Coalition

    The MIT Materials Research Laboratory

    Merger of the Materials Processing Center and the Center for Materials Science and Engineering melds a rich history of materials science and engineering breakthroughs.

    The Materials Research Laboratory at MIT starts from a foundation of fundamental scientific research, practical engineering applications, educational outreach and shared experimental facilities laid by its merger partners, the Materials Processing Center and the Center for Materials Science and Engineering.

    “We’re bringing them together and that will make communication both inside and outside MIT easier and will make it clearer especially to people outside MIT that for interdisciplinary research on materials, this is the place to learn about it,” says MRL Director Carl V. Thompson.

    The Materials Research Laboratory serves interdisciplinary groups of faculty researchers, spanning the spectrum of basic scientific discovery through engineering applications and entrepreneurship to ensure that research breakthroughs have impact on society. The center engages with approximately 150 faculty members and scientists from across the Schools of Science and Engineering who are conducting materials science research. MRL will work with MIT.nano to enhance the toolset available for groundbreaking research as well as collaborate with the MIT Innovation Initiative and The Engine.

    MRL will benefit from the long history of research breakthroughs under MPC and CMSE such as “perfect mirror” technology developed through CMSE in 1998 that led to a new kind of fiber optic surgery and a spinout company, OmniGuide Surgical, and the first germanium laser operating at room temperature, which is used for optical communications, in 2012 through MPC’s affiliated Microphotonics Center.

    The Materials Processing Center brings to the partnership its wide diversity of materials research, funded by industry, foundations and government agencies, while the Center for Materials Science and Engineering brings its seed projects in basic science and Interdisciplinary Research Groups, educational outreach and shared experimental facilities, funded under the National Science Foundation Materials Research Science and Engineering Center program [NSF-MRSEC]. Combined research funding was $21.5 million for the fiscal year ended June 30, 2017.

    MPC’s research volume more than doubled during the past nine years under Thompson’s leadership. “We do have a higher profile in the community both internal as well as external. We developed over the years a close collaboration with CMSE, including outreach. That will be greatly amplified through the merger,” he says. Thompson is the Stavros Salapatas Professor of Materials Science and Engineering at MIT.

    Tackling energy problems

    With industrial support, MPC and CMSE launched the Substrate Engineering Lab in 2004. MPC affiliates include the AIM Photonics Academy, the Center for Integrated Quantum Materials and the MIT Skoltech Center for Electrochemical Energy Storage. Other research includes Professor ‪Harry L. Tuller’s‬‬‬‬ Chemomechanics of Far-From-Equilibrium Interfaces (COFFEI) project, which aims to produce better oxide-based semiconductor materials for fuel cells, and ‬‬‬‬‬‬‬Senior Research Scientist Jurgen Michel’s Micro-Scale Optimized Solar-Cell Arrays with Integrated Concentration (MOSAIC) project, which aims to achieve overall efficiency of greater than 30 percent. ‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬

    The MPC kicked off the Singapore-MIT Alliance for Research and Technology Center’s program in Low Energy Electronic Systems [SMART-LEES] in January 2012, managing the MIT part of the budget. SMART-LEES, led by Eugene A. Fitzgerald, the Merton C. Flemings-SMA Professor of Materials Science and Engineering at MIT, was renewed for another five years in January 2017.

    Shared experimental facilities, including X-Ray diffraction, scanning and transmission electron microscopy, probe microscopy, and surface analytical capabilities, are used by more than 1,100 individuals each year. “The amount of investment that needs to be made to keep state-of-the-art shared facilities at a university like MIT is on the order of 1 to 2 million dollars per year in new investment and new tools. That kind of funding is very difficult to get. It certainly doesn’t come to us through just NSF funding,” says TDK Professor of Polymer Materials Science and Engineering Michael F. Rubner, who is retiring after 16 years as CMSE director. “MIT.nano, in concert with MRL, will be able to work together to look at new strategies for trying to maintain state-of-the-art equipment and to find funding sources and to figure out ways to not only get the equipment in, but to have highly trained professionals running that equipment.”

    Associate Professor of Materials Science and Engineering Geoffrey S.D. Beach succeeds Rubner as co-director of the MIT MRL and principal investigator for the NSF-MRSEC.

    Spinning out jobs

    NSF-MRSEC-funded research through CMSE has led to approximately 1,100 new jobs through spinouts such as American Superconductor [superconductivity], OmniGuide Surgical [optical fibers] and QD Vision [quantum dots], which Samsung acquired in 2016. Many of these innovations began with seed funding, CMSE’s earliest stage of support, and evolved through joint efforts with MPC, such as microphotonics research that began with a seed grant in 1993, followed by Interdisciplinary Research Group funding a year later. In 1997, MIT researchers published two key papers in Nature and Physical Review Letters, won a two-year, multi-university award through DARPA for Photonic Crystal Engineering, and formed the Microphotonics Center. Further research led to the spinout in 2002 of Luminus Devices, which specializes in solid-state lighting based on light emitting diodes [LEDs].

    “Our greatest legacy is bringing people together to produce fundamental new science, and then allowing those researchers to explore that new science in ways that may be beneficial to society, as well as to develop new technologies and launch companies,” Rubner says. He recalls that research in complex photonic crystal structures began with Francis Wright Davis Professor of Physics John D. Joannopoulos as leader. “They got funding through us, at first as seed funding and then IRG [interdisciplinary research group] funding, and over the years, they have continued to get funding from us because they evolved. They would seek a new direction, and one of the new directions they evolved into was this idea of making photonic fibers, so they went from photonic crystals to photonic fibers and that led to, for example, the launching of OmniGuide.” An outgrowth of basic CMSE research, the company’s founders included Professors Joannopolous, Yoel Fink, and Edwin L. [“Ned”] Thomas, who served as William and Stephanie Sick Dean of the George R. Brown School of Engineering at Rice University from 2011 to 2017.

    Under Fink’s leadership, that work evolved into Advanced Functional Fabrics of America [AFFOA], a public-private Manufacturing Innovation Institute devoted to creating and bringing to market revolutionary fibers and textiles. The institute, which is a separate nonprofit organization, is led by Fink, while MIT on-campus research is led by Lammot du Pont Professor of Chemical Engineering Gregory C. Rutledge.

    Susan D. Dalton, NSF-MRSEC Assistant Director, recalls the evolution of perfect mirror technology into life-saving new fiber optic surgery. “From an administrator’s point of view,” Dalton says, “it’s really exciting because day to day, things happen that you don’t know are going to happen. When you think about saving people’s lives, that’s amazing, and that’s just one example,” she says.

    Government, industry partners

    Through its Collegium and close partnership with the MIT‪ Industrial Liaison Program (‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬ILP), MPC has a long history of government and industrial partnerships as well as individual faculty research projects. Merton C. Flemings, who is MPC’s founding director [1980-82], and a retired Toyota Professor of Materials Processing, recalls that the early focus was primarily on metallurgy, but ceramics work also was important. “It’s gone way beyond that, and it’s a delight to see what’s going on,” he notes.‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬

    “From the time of initiation of the MPC, we had interdepartmental participation, and quite soon after its formation, we initiated an industrial collegium to share in research formulation and participate in research partnerships. I believe our collegium was the first to work collaboratively with the Industrial Liaison Program. It was also at a period in MIT history when working directly with the commercial sector was rare,” Flemings says.

    Founded in February 1980, the Materials Processing Center won early support from NASA, which was interested in processing materials in space. A question being asked then was: “What would it be like when you’re in zero gravity and you try and purify a metal or make anything out there? Dr. John R. Carruthers headed this zero gravity materials processing activity in NASA, and as he considered the problem, he realized we didn’t really have much of a science base of materials processing on earth, let alone in space. With that in mind, at Carruthers’ instigation, NASA provided a very generous continuing grant to MIT that was essential to us starting in those early years,” Flemings explains.

    Carruthers went on to become director of research with Intel and is now Distinguished Professor of Physics, at Portland [Oregon] State University. The two men – Flemings at MIT and Carruthers at the University of Toronto – had been familiar with each other’s work in the study of how metals solidify, before Carruthers joined NASA as director of its materials processing in space program in 1977. Both Flemings and Carruthers wanted to understand how the effects of gravitationally driven convection influenced the segregation processes during metals solidification.

    “In molten metal baths, as the metal solidifies into ingots, the solidification process is never uniform. And so the distribution of the components being solidified is very much affected by fluid flow or convection in the molten metal,” Carruthers explains. “We were both interested in what would happen if you could actually turn gravity down because most of the convective effects were influenced by density gradients in the metal due to thermal and compositional effects. So, we were quite interested in what would happen given that those density gradients existed, if you could actually turn the effects of gravity down.”

    “When the NASA program came around, they wanted to try to use the low gravity environment of space to actually fabricate materials,” Carruthers recalls. “After a couple of years at NASA, I was able to secure some block grant funding for the center. It subsequently, of course, has developed its own legs and outgrown any of the initial funding that we provided, which is really great to see, and it’s a tribute to the MIT way of doing research, of course, as well. I was really quite proud to be part of the early development of the center,” Carruthers says. “Many of the things we learned in those days are relevant to other areas. I’m finding a lot of knowledge and way of doing things is transferrable to the biomedical sciences, for example, so I’ve become quiet interested in helping to develop things like nanomonitors, you know, more materials science-oriented approaches for the biomedical sciences.”

    Expanding research portfolio

    From its beginnings in metals processing with NASA support, MPC evolved into a multi-faceted center with diverse sponsors of research in energy harvesting, conversion and storage; fuel cells; quantum materials and spintronics; materials integration for microsystems; photonic devices and systems; materials systems and sustainability; solid-state ionics; as well as metals processing, an old topic that is hot again.

    MRL-affiliated MIT condensed matter physicists include experimentalists Raymond C. Ashoori, Joseph G. Checkelsky, Nuh Gedik, and Pablo Jarillo-Herrero, who are exploring quantum materials for next-generation electronics, such as spintronics and valleytronics, new forms of nanoscale magnetism, and graphene-based optoelectronic devices. Riccardo Comin explores electronic phases in quantum materials. Theorists Liang Fu and Senthil Todadri envision new forms of random access memory, Majorana fermions for quantum computing, and unusual magnetic materials such as quantum spin liquids.

    In the realm of biophysics, Associate Professor Jeff Gore tests fundamental ideas of theoretical ecology and evolutionary dynamics through experimental studies of microbial communities. Class of 1922 Career Development Assistant Professor Ibrahim Cissé uses physical techniques that visualize weak and transient biological interactions to study emergent phenomena in live cells with single molecule sensitivity. On the theoretical front, Professor Thomas D. & Virginia W. Cabot Career Development Associate Professor of Physics Jeremy England focuses on structure, function, and evolution in the sub-cellular biophysical realm.

    Alan Taub, Professor of Materials Science and Engineering at the University of Michigan, has become a member of the new Materials Research Laboratory External Advisory Board. Taub previously served in senior materials science management roles with General Motors, Ford Motor Co. and General Electric and served as chairman of the Materials Processing Center Advisory Board from 2001-2006. He notes that under Director Lionel Kimerling [1993-2008], MPC embraced the new area of photonics. “That transition was really well done,” Taub says. The MRL-affiliated Microphotonics Center has produced collaborative roadmapping reports since 2007 to guide manufacturing research and address systems requirements for networks that fully exploit the power of photonics. Taub also is chief technical officer of LIFT Manufacturing Innovation Institute, in which MIT Assistant Professor of Materials Science and Engineering Elsa Olivetti and senior research scientist Randolph E. [Randy] Kirchain are engaged in cost modeling.

    From its founding, Taub notes, MPC engaged the faculty with industry. Advisory board members often sponsored research as well as offering advice. “So it was really the way to guide the general direction, you know, teach them that there are things industry needs. And remember, this was the era well before entrepreneurism. It really was the interface to the Fortune 500’s and guiding and transitioning the technology out of MIT. That’s why I think it survived changes in technology focus, because at its core, it was interfacing industry needs with the research capabilities at the Institute,” Taub says.

    Broadening participation

    Susan Rosevear, who is the Education Officer for the NSF-MRSEC, is responsible for an extensive array of programs, including the Summer Scholars program, which is primarily funded through NSF’s Research Experience for Undergraduates (REU) program. Each summer a dozen or so top undergraduates from across the country spend about two months at MIT as lab interns working with professors, postdocs and graduate students on cutting edge research.

    CMSE also conducts summer programs for community college students and teachers, middle and high school teachers, and participates in the Women’s Technology Program and Boston Area Girls’ STEM Collaborative. “Because diversity is also part of our mission, part of what our mission from NSF is, in all we do, we try to broaden participation in science and engineering,” Rosevear says.

    Teachers who participate in these programs often note how collaborative the research enterprise is at MIT, Rosevear notes. Several have replaced cookbook-style labs with open-ended projects that let students experience original research.

    Confidence to test ideas

    Merrimack [N.H.] High School chemistry teacher Sean Müller first participated in the Research Experience for Teachers program in 2000. “Through my experiences with the RET program, I have learned how to ‘run a research group’ consisting of my students. Without this experience, I would not have had the confidence to allow my students to research, develop, and test their original ideas. This has also allowed me to coach our school’s Science Olympiad team to six consecutive state titles, to mentor a set of students that developed a mini bio-diesel processor that they sold to Turner Biodiesel, and to mentor another set of students that took second place in Embedded Systems at I.S.E.F. [Intel International Science and Engineering Fair] last year for their ChemiCube chemical dispensing system,” Müller says.

    Müller says he is always looking for new ideas and researching older ideas to develop lab activities in his classroom. “One year my students made light emitting thin films. We have grown beautiful bismuth crystals in our test furnace, and currently I am working out how to make glow-in-the-dark zinc sulfide electroluminescent by doping it with copper so that we can make our own electroluminescent panels,” he says. “Next year we are going to try to make the clear see-through wood that was in the news earlier this year. I am also bringing in new materials that they have not seen before such as gallium-indium eutectic. These novel materials and activities generate a very high level of enthusiasm and interest in my students, and students that are excited, interested, and motivated learn more efficiently and more effectively.”

    Müller developed a relationship with Prof. Steve Leeb that has brought Müller back to MIT during past summers to present a brief background in polymer chemistry, supplemented by hands-on demonstrations and activities, for the Science Teacher Enrichment Program (STEP) and Women’s Technology program. “Last year I showed them how they could use their cell phone and a polarized film to see the different areas of crystallization in polymers when they are stressed,” Müller says. “I enjoy the presentation because it is more of a conversation with all of the teachers, myself included, asking questions about different activities and methods and discussing what has worked and what has not worked in the past.”

    Conducive environment

    Looking back on his nine years as MPC director, Thompson says, “The MPC served a broad community, but many people at MIT didn’t know about it because it was in the basement of Building 12. So one of the things that I wanted to do was raise the profile of MPC so people better understood what the MPC did in order to better serve the community.” MPC rolled out a new logo and developed a higher profile Web page, for example. “I think that was successful. I think many more people understand who we are and what we do and that enables us to do more,” Thompson says. In 2014 MPC moved to Building 24 as the old Building 12 was razed to make way for MIT.nano. The new MRL is consolidating its offices in Building 13.

    “Research breakthroughs by their very nature are hard to predict, but what we can do is we can create an environment that leads to research breakthroughs,” Thompson says. “The successful model in both MPC and CMSE is to bring together people interested in materials, but with different disciplinary backgrounds. We’ve done that separately, we’ll do it together, and the expectation is that we’ll do it even more effectively.”

    MIT Seal

    USPS “Forever” postage stamps celebrating Innovation at MIT.

    MIT Campus

    Founded in 1861 in response to the increasing industrialization of the United States, Massachusetts Institute of Technology adopted a European polytechnic university model and stressed laboratory instruction in applied science and engineering. It has since played a key role in the development of many aspects of modern science, engineering, mathematics, and technology, and is widely known for its innovation and academic strength. It is frequently regarded as one of the most prestigious universities in the world.

    The Massachusetts Institute of Technology is a private land-grant research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. The institute has an urban campus that extends more than a mile (1.6 km) alongside the Charles River. The institute also encompasses a number of major off-campus facilities such as the MIT Lincoln Laboratory , the MIT Bates Research and Engineering Center , and the Haystack Observatory , as well as affiliated laboratories such as the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard and Whitehead Institute.

    As of December 2020, 97 Nobel laureates, 26 Turing Award winners, and 8 Fields Medalists have been affiliated with MIT as alumni, faculty members, or researchers. In addition, 58 National Medal of Science recipients, 29 National Medals of Technology and Innovation recipients, 50 MacArthur Fellows, 80 Marshall Scholars, 3 Mitchell Scholars, 22 Schwarzman Scholars, 41 astronauts, and 16 Chief Scientists of the U.S. Air Force have been affiliated with The Massachusetts Institute of Technology. The university also has a strong entrepreneurial culture and MIT alumni have founded or co-founded many notable companies. Massachusetts Institute of Technology is a member of the Association of American Universities.

    Foundation and vision

    In 1859, a proposal was submitted to the Massachusetts General Court to use newly filled lands in Back Bay, Boston for a “Conservatory of Art and Science”, but the proposal failed. A charter for the incorporation of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, proposed by William Barton Rogers, was signed by John Albion Andrew, the governor of Massachusetts, on April 10, 1861.

    Rogers, a professor from the University of Virginia , wanted to establish an institution to address rapid scientific and technological advances. He did not wish to found a professional school, but a combination with elements of both professional and liberal education, proposing that:

    “The true and only practicable object of a polytechnic school is, as I conceive, the teaching, not of the minute details and manipulations of the arts, which can be done only in the workshop, but the inculcation of those scientific principles which form the basis and explanation of them, and along with this, a full and methodical review of all their leading processes and operations in connection with physical laws.”

    The Rogers Plan reflected the German research university model, emphasizing an independent faculty engaged in research, as well as instruction oriented around seminars and laboratories.

    Early developments

    Two days after The Massachusetts Institute of Technology was chartered, the first battle of the Civil War broke out. After a long delay through the war years, MIT’s first classes were held in the Mercantile Building in Boston in 1865. The new institute was founded as part of the Morrill Land-Grant Colleges Act to fund institutions “to promote the liberal and practical education of the industrial classes” and was a land-grant school. In 1863 under the same act, the Commonwealth of Massachusetts founded the Massachusetts Agricultural College, which developed as the University of Massachusetts Amherst ). In 1866, the proceeds from land sales went toward new buildings in the Back Bay.

    The Massachusetts Institute of Technology was informally called “Boston Tech”. The institute adopted the European polytechnic university model and emphasized laboratory instruction from an early date. Despite chronic financial problems, the institute saw growth in the last two decades of the 19th century under President Francis Amasa Walker. Programs in electrical, chemical, marine, and sanitary engineering were introduced, new buildings were built, and the size of the student body increased to more than one thousand.

    The curriculum drifted to a vocational emphasis, with less focus on theoretical science. The fledgling school still suffered from chronic financial shortages which diverted the attention of the MIT leadership. During these “Boston Tech” years, Massachusetts Institute of Technology faculty and alumni rebuffed Harvard University president (and former MIT faculty) Charles W. Eliot’s repeated attempts to merge MIT with Harvard College’s Lawrence Scientific School. There would be at least six attempts to absorb MIT into Harvard. In its cramped Back Bay location, MIT could not afford to expand its overcrowded facilities, driving a desperate search for a new campus and funding. Eventually, the MIT Corporation approved a formal agreement to merge with Harvard, over the vehement objections of MIT faculty, students, and alumni. However, a 1917 decision by the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court effectively put an end to the merger scheme.

    In 1916, The Massachusetts Institute of Technology administration and the MIT charter crossed the Charles River on the ceremonial barge Bucentaur built for the occasion, to signify MIT’s move to a spacious new campus largely consisting of filled land on a one-mile-long (1.6 km) tract along the Cambridge side of the Charles River. The neoclassical “New Technology” campus was designed by William W. Bosworth and had been funded largely by anonymous donations from a mysterious “Mr. Smith”, starting in 1912. In January 1920, the donor was revealed to be the industrialist George Eastman of Rochester, New York, who had invented methods of film production and processing, and founded Eastman Kodak. Between 1912 and 1920, Eastman donated $20 million ($236.6 million in 2015 dollars) in cash and Kodak stock to MIT.

    Curricular reforms

    In the 1930s, President Karl Taylor Compton and Vice-President (effectively Provost) Vannevar Bush emphasized the importance of pure sciences like physics and chemistry and reduced the vocational practice required in shops and drafting studios. The Compton reforms “renewed confidence in the ability of the Institute to develop leadership in science as well as in engineering”. Unlike Ivy League schools, Massachusetts Institute of Technology catered more to middle-class families, and depended more on tuition than on endowments or grants for its funding. The school was elected to the Association of American Universities in 1934.

    Still, as late as 1949, the Lewis Committee lamented in its report on the state of education at The Massachusetts Institute of Technology that “the Institute is widely conceived as basically a vocational school”, a “partly unjustified” perception the committee sought to change. The report comprehensively reviewed the undergraduate curriculum, recommended offering a broader education, and warned against letting engineering and government-sponsored research detract from the sciences and humanities. The School of Humanities, Arts, and Social Sciences and the MIT Sloan School of Management were formed in 1950 to compete with the powerful Schools of Science and Engineering. Previously marginalized faculties in the areas of economics, management, political science, and linguistics emerged into cohesive and assertive departments by attracting respected professors and launching competitive graduate programs. The School of Humanities, Arts, and Social Sciences continued to develop under the successive terms of the more humanistically oriented presidents Howard W. Johnson and Jerome Wiesner between 1966 and 1980.

    The Massachusetts Institute of Technology‘s involvement in military science surged during World War II. In 1941, Vannevar Bush was appointed head of the federal Office of Scientific Research and Development and directed funding to only a select group of universities, including MIT. Engineers and scientists from across the country gathered at Massachusetts Institute of Technology ‘s Radiation Laboratory, established in 1940 to assist the British military in developing microwave radar. The work done there significantly affected both the war and subsequent research in the area. Other defense projects included gyroscope-based and other complex control systems for gunsight, bombsight, and inertial navigation under Charles Stark Draper’s Instrumentation Laboratory; the development of a digital computer for flight simulations under Project Whirlwind; and high-speed and high-altitude photography under Harold Edgerton. By the end of the war, The Massachusetts Institute of Technology became the nation’s largest wartime R&D contractor (attracting some criticism of Bush), employing nearly 4000 in the Radiation Laboratory alone and receiving in excess of $100 million ($1.2 billion in 2015 dollars) before 1946. Work on defense projects continued even after then. Post-war government-sponsored research at MIT included SAGE and guidance systems for ballistic missiles and Project Apollo.

    These activities affected The Massachusetts Institute of Technology profoundly. A 1949 report noted the lack of “any great slackening in the pace of life at the Institute” to match the return to peacetime, remembering the “academic tranquility of the prewar years”, though acknowledging the significant contributions of military research to the increased emphasis on graduate education and rapid growth of personnel and facilities. The faculty doubled and the graduate student body quintupled during the terms of Karl Taylor Compton, president of The Massachusetts Institute of Technology between 1930 and 1948; James Rhyne Killian, president from 1948 to 1957; and Julius Adams Stratton, chancellor from 1952 to 1957, whose institution-building strategies shaped the expanding university. By the 1950s, The Massachusetts Institute of Technology no longer simply benefited the industries with which it had worked for three decades, and it had developed closer working relationships with new patrons, philanthropic foundations and the federal government.

    In late 1960s and early 1970s, student and faculty activists protested against the Vietnam War and The Massachusetts Institute of Technology ‘s defense research. In this period Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s various departments were researching helicopters, smart bombs and counterinsurgency techniques for the war in Vietnam as well as guidance systems for nuclear missiles. The Union of Concerned Scientists was founded on March 4, 1969 during a meeting of faculty members and students seeking to shift the emphasis on military research toward environmental and social problems. The Massachusetts Institute of Technology ultimately divested itself from the Instrumentation Laboratory and moved all classified research off-campus to the MIT Lincoln Laboratory facility in 1973 in response to the protests. The student body, faculty, and administration remained comparatively unpolarized during what was a tumultuous time for many other universities. Johnson was seen to be highly successful in leading his institution to “greater strength and unity” after these times of turmoil. However, six Massachusetts Institute of Technology students were sentenced to prison terms at this time and some former student leaders, such as Michael Albert and George Katsiaficas, are still indignant about MIT’s role in military research and its suppression of these protests. (Richard Leacock’s film, November Actions, records some of these tumultuous events.)

    In the 1980s, there was more controversy at The Massachusetts Institute of Technology over its involvement in SDI (space weaponry) and CBW (chemical and biological warfare) research. More recently, The Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s research for the military has included work on robots, drones and ‘battle suits’.

    Recent history

    The Massachusetts Institute of Technology has kept pace with and helped to advance the digital age. In addition to developing the predecessors to modern computing and networking technologies, students, staff, and faculty members at Project MAC, the Artificial Intelligence Laboratory, and the Tech Model Railroad Club wrote some of the earliest interactive computer video games like Spacewar! and created much of modern hacker slang and culture. Several major computer-related organizations have originated at MIT since the 1980s: Richard Stallman’s GNU Project and the subsequent Free Software Foundation were founded in the mid-1980s at the AI Lab; the MIT Media Lab was founded in 1985 by Nicholas Negroponte and Jerome Wiesner to promote research into novel uses of computer technology; the World Wide Web Consortium standards organization was founded at the Laboratory for Computer Science in 1994 by Tim Berners-Lee; the MIT OpenCourseWare project has made course materials for over 2,000 Massachusetts Institute of Technology classes available online free of charge since 2002; and the One Laptop per Child initiative to expand computer education and connectivity to children worldwide was launched in 2005.

    The Massachusetts Institute of Technology was named a sea-grant college in 1976 to support its programs in oceanography and marine sciences and was named a space-grant college in 1989 to support its aeronautics and astronautics programs. Despite diminishing government financial support over the past quarter century, MIT launched several successful development campaigns to significantly expand the campus: new dormitories and athletics buildings on west campus; the Tang Center for Management Education; several buildings in the northeast corner of campus supporting research into biology, brain and cognitive sciences, genomics, biotechnology, and cancer research; and a number of new “backlot” buildings on Vassar Street including the Stata Center. Construction on campus in the 2000s included expansions of the Media Lab, the Sloan School’s eastern campus, and graduate residences in the northwest. In 2006, President Hockfield launched the MIT Energy Research Council to investigate the interdisciplinary challenges posed by increasing global energy consumption.

    In 2001, inspired by the open source and open access movements, The Massachusetts Institute of Technology launched “OpenCourseWare” to make the lecture notes, problem sets, syllabi, exams, and lectures from the great majority of its courses available online for no charge, though without any formal accreditation for coursework completed. While the cost of supporting and hosting the project is high, OCW expanded in 2005 to include other universities as a part of the OpenCourseWare Consortium, which currently includes more than 250 academic institutions with content available in at least six languages. In 2011, The Massachusetts Institute of Technology announced it would offer formal certification (but not credits or degrees) to online participants completing coursework in its “MITx” program, for a modest fee. The “edX” online platform supporting MITx was initially developed in partnership with Harvard and its analogous “Harvardx” initiative. The courseware platform is open source, and other universities have already joined and added their own course content. In March 2009 the Massachusetts Institute of Technology faculty adopted an open-access policy to make its scholarship publicly accessible online.

    The Massachusetts Institute of Technology has its own police force. Three days after the Boston Marathon bombing of April 2013, MIT Police patrol officer Sean Collier was fatally shot by the suspects Dzhokhar and Tamerlan Tsarnaev, setting off a violent manhunt that shut down the campus and much of the Boston metropolitan area for a day. One week later, Collier’s memorial service was attended by more than 10,000 people, in a ceremony hosted by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology community with thousands of police officers from the New England region and Canada. On November 25, 2013, The Massachusetts Institute of Technology announced the creation of the Collier Medal, to be awarded annually to “an individual or group that embodies the character and qualities that Officer Collier exhibited as a member of The Massachusetts Institute of Technology community and in all aspects of his life”. The announcement further stated that “Future recipients of the award will include those whose contributions exceed the boundaries of their profession, those who have contributed to building bridges across the community, and those who consistently and selflessly perform acts of kindness”.

    In September 2017, the school announced the creation of an artificial intelligence research lab called the MIT-IBM Watson AI Lab. IBM will spend $240 million over the next decade, and the lab will be staffed by MIT and IBM scientists. In October 2018 MIT announced that it would open a new Schwarzman College of Computing dedicated to the study of artificial intelligence, named after lead donor and The Blackstone Group CEO Stephen Schwarzman. The focus of the new college is to study not just AI, but interdisciplinary AI education, and how AI can be used in fields as diverse as history and biology. The cost of buildings and new faculty for the new college is expected to be $1 billion upon completion.

    The Caltech/MIT Advanced aLIGO was designed and constructed by a team of scientists from California Institute of Technology , Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and industrial contractors, and funded by the National Science Foundation .

    Caltech /MIT Advanced aLigo

    It was designed to open the field of gravitational-wave astronomy through the detection of gravitational waves predicted by general relativity. Gravitational waves were detected for the first time by the LIGO detector in 2015. For contributions to the LIGO detector and the observation of gravitational waves, two Caltech physicists, Kip Thorne and Barry Barish, and Massachusetts Institute of Technology physicist Rainer Weiss won the Nobel Prize in physics in 2017. Weiss, who is also a Massachusetts Institute of Technology graduate, designed the laser interferometric technique, which served as the essential blueprint for the LIGO.

    The mission of The Massachusetts Institute of Technology is to advance knowledge and educate students in science, technology, and other areas of scholarship that will best serve the nation and the world in the twenty-first century. We seek to develop in each member of The Massachusetts Institute of Technology community the ability and passion to work wisely, creatively, and effectively for the betterment of humankind.

     
  • richardmitnick 8:56 am on May 18, 2023 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: "HR-AFM": high-resolution non-contact atomic force microscopy, "Seeing Electron Orbital Signatures", , , , By directly observing the signatures of electron orbitals using techniques such as atomic force microscopy we can gain a better understanding of the behavior of individual atoms and molecules., By directly observing the signatures of electron orbitals using techniques such as atomic force microscopy we might learn how to design and engineer new materials with specific properties., , , , Despite Fe and Co being adjacent atoms on the periodic table which implies similarity the corresponding force spectra and their measured images show reproducible experimental differences., , Material Sciences, , , , , Scientists using supercomputers and atomic resolution microscopes have imaged the signatures of electron orbitals which are defined by mathematical equations of quantum mechanics., , Supercomputing simulations on TACC's Stampede2 system spot electronic differences in adjacent transition-metal atoms.,   

    From The Texas Advanced Computing Center: “Seeing Electron Orbital Signatures” 

    From The Texas Advanced Computing Center

    At

    The University of Texas-Austin

    5.15.23
    Jorge Salazar

    Supercomputing simulations on TACC’s Stampede2 system [below] spot electronic differences in adjacent transition-metal atoms.

    1
    Supercomputer simulations and atomic resolution microscopes were used to directly observe the signatures of electron orbitals in two different transition-metal atoms, iron (Fe) and cobalt (Co). This new knowledge can help make advancements in fields such as materials science, nanotechnology, and catalysis. Credit: Chen, P., Fan, D., Selloni, A. et al.

    No one will ever be able to see a purely mathematical construct such as a perfect sphere. But now, scientists using supercomputer simulations and atomic resolution microscopes have imaged the signatures of electron orbitals, which are defined by mathematical equations of quantum mechanics and predict where an atom’s electron is most likely to be.

    Scientists at UT Austin, Princeton University, and ExxonMobil have directly observed the signatures of electron orbitals in two different transition-metal atoms, iron (Fe) and cobalt (Co) present in metal-phthalocyanines. Those signatures are apparent in the forces measured by atomic force microscopes, which often reflect the underlying orbitals and can be so interpreted.

    Their study was published in March 2023 as an Editors’ Highlight in the journal Nature Communications [below].

    3
    (a) Low-magnification STM image of FePc and CoPc molecules using a CO tip. Schematic side (b) and top (c) views of the relaxed FePc molecule adsorbed on a Cu(111) substrate. Blue: Fe, yellow: C, pink: N, white: H, dark purple: Cu. Credit: Chen, P., Fan, D., Selloni, A. et al.

    “Our collaborators at Princeton University found that despite Fe and Co being adjacent atoms on the periodic table, which implies similarity, the corresponding force spectra and their measured images show reproducible experimental differences,” said study co-author James R. Chelikowsky, the W.A. “Tex” Moncrief, Jr. Chair of Computational Materials and professor in the Departments of Physics, Chemical Engineering, and Chemistry in the College of Natural Sciences at UT Austin. Chelikowsky also serves as the director of the Center for Computational Materials at the Oden Institute for Computational Engineering and Sciences.

    Without a theoretical analysis, the Princeton scientists could not determine the source of the differences they spotted using high-resolution non-contact atomic force microscopy (HR-AFM) and spectroscopy that measured molecular-scale forces on the order of piconewtons (pN), one-trillionth of a Newton.

    “When we first observed the experimental images, our initial reaction was to marvel at how experiment could capture such subtle differences. These are very small forces,” Chelikowsky added.

    “By directly observing the signatures of electron orbitals using techniques such as atomic force microscopy we can gain a better understanding of the behavior of individual atoms and molecules, and potentially even how to design and engineer new materials with specific properties. This is especially important in fields such as materials science, nanotechnology, and catalysis,” Chelikowsky said.

    The required electronic structure calculations are based on density functional theory (DFT), which starts from basic quantum mechanical equations and serves as a practical approach for predicting the behavior of materials.

    “Our main contribution is that we validated through our real-space DFT calculations that the observed experimental differences primarily stem from the different electronic configurations in 3d electrons of Fe and Co near the Fermi level, the highest energy state an electron can occupy in the atom,” said study co-first author Dingxin Fan, a former graduate student working with Chelikowsky. Fan is now a postdoctoral research associate at the Princeton Materials Institute.

    4
    Dingxin Fan (L) of Princeton University; James R. Chelikowsky (R) of UT Austin.

    The DFT calculations included the copper substrate for the Fe and Co atoms, adding a few hundred atoms to the mix and calling for intense computation, for which they were awarded an allocation on the Stampede2 supercomputer at the Texas Advanced Computing Center (TACC), funded by the National Science Foundation.

    “In terms of our model, at a certain height, we moved the carbon monoxide tip of the AFM over the sample and computed the quantum forces at every single grid point in real space,” Fan said. “This entails hundreds of different computations. The built-in software packages on TACC’s Stampede2 helped us to perform data analysis much more easily. For example, the Visual Molecular Dynamics software expedites an analysis of our computational results.”

    “Stampede2 has provided excellent computational power and storage capacity to support various research projects we have,” Chelikowsky added.

    By demonstrating that the electron orbital signatures are indeed observable using AFM, the scientists assert that this new knowledge can extend the applicability of AFM into different areas.

    5
    AFM images of FePc and CoPc on a Cu(111) surface (a) Experimental constant-height AFM frequency-shift images. (b) Glow-edges filtered experimental AFM image (based on a). (c) Simulated AFM images. (d) Estimated width (in pm) of the central part of the spin-polarized DFT calculations. Credit: Chen, P., Fan, D., Selloni, A. et al.

    What’s more, their study, used an inert molecular probe tip to approach another molecule and accurately measured the interactions between the two molecules. This allowed the science team to study specific surface chemical reactions.

    For example, suppose that a catalyst can accelerate a certain chemical reaction, but it is unknown which molecular site is responsible for the catalysis. In this case, an AFM tip prepared with the reactant molecule can be used to measure the interactions at different sites, ultimately determining the chemically active site or sites.

    Moreover, since the orbital level information can be obtained, scientists can gain a much deeper understanding of what will happen when a chemical reaction occurs. As a result, other scientists could design more efficient catalysts based on this information.

    Said Chelikowsky: “Supercomputers, in many ways, allow us to control how atoms interact without having to go into the lab. Such work can guide the discovery of new materials without a laborious ‘trial and error’ procedure.”

    Nature Communications

    See the full article here .

    Comments are invited and will be appreciated, especially if the reader finds any errors which I can correct. Use “Reply”.

    five-ways-keep-your-child-safe-school-shootings

    Please help promote STEM in your local schools.

    Stem Education Coalition

    The Texas Advanced Computing Center at The University of Texas-Austin is an advanced computing research center that provides comprehensive advanced computing resources and support services to researchers in Texas and across the USA. The mission of TACC is to enable discoveries that advance science and society through the application of advanced computing technologies. Specializing in high performance computing, scientific visualization, data analysis & storage systems, software, research & development and portal interfaces, TACC deploys and operates advanced computational infrastructure to enable computational research activities of faculty, staff, and students of UT Austin. TACC also provides consulting, technical documentation, and training to support researchers who use these resources. TACC staff members conduct research and development in applications and algorithms, computing systems design/architecture, and programming tools and environments.

    Founded in 2001, TACC is one of the centers of computational excellence in the United States. Through the National Science Foundation Extreme Science and Engineering Discovery Environment project, TACC’s resources and services are made available to the national academic research community. TACC is located on The University of Texas-Austin’s J. J. Pickle Research Campus.

    TACC collaborators include researchers in other University of Texas-Austin departments and centers, at Texas universities in the High Performance Computing Across Texas Consortium, and at other U.S. universities and government laboratories.

    TACC Maverick HP NVIDIA supercomputer

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    Stampede2 Arrives!

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    University Texas at Austin

    U Texas Austin campus

    The University of Texas-Austin is a public research university in Austin, Texas and the flagship institution of the University of Texas System. Founded in 1883, the University of Texas was inducted into the Association of American Universities in 1929, becoming only the third university in the American South to be elected. The institution has the nation’s seventh-largest single-campus enrollment, with over 50,000 undergraduate and graduate students and over 24,000 faculty and staff.

    A Public Ivy, it is a major center for academic research. The university houses seven museums and seventeen libraries, including the LBJ Presidential Library and the Blanton Museum of Art, and operates various auxiliary research facilities, such as the J. J. Pickle Research Campus and the McDonald Observatory. As of November 2020, 13 Nobel Prize winners, four Pulitzer Prize winners, two Turing Award winners, two Fields medalists, two Wolf Prize winners, and two Abel prize winners have been affiliated with the school as alumni, faculty members or researchers. The university has also been affiliated with three Primetime Emmy Award winners, and has produced a total of 143 Olympic medalists.

    Student-athletes compete as the Texas Longhorns and are members of the Big 12 Conference. Its Longhorn Network is the only sports network featuring the college sports of a single university. The Longhorns have won four NCAA Division I National Football Championships, six NCAA Division I National Baseball Championships, thirteen NCAA Division I National Men’s Swimming and Diving Championships, and has claimed more titles in men’s and women’s sports than any other school in the Big 12 since the league was founded in 1996.

    Establishment

    The first mention of a public university in Texas can be traced to the 1827 constitution for the Mexican state of Coahuila y Tejas. Although Title 6, Article 217 of the Constitution promised to establish public education in the arts and sciences, no action was taken by the Mexican government. After Texas obtained its independence from Mexico in 1836, the Texas Congress adopted the Constitution of the Republic, which, under Section 5 of its General Provisions, stated “It shall be the duty of Congress, as soon as circumstances will permit, to provide, by law, a general system of education.”

    On April 18, 1838, “An Act to Establish the University of Texas” was referred to a special committee of the Texas Congress, but was not reported back for further action. On January 26, 1839, the Texas Congress agreed to set aside fifty leagues of land—approximately 288,000 acres (117,000 ha)—towards the establishment of a publicly funded university. In addition, 40 acres (16 ha) in the new capital of Austin were reserved and designated “College Hill”. (The term “Forty Acres” is colloquially used to refer to the University as a whole. The original 40 acres is the area from Guadalupe to Speedway and 21st Street to 24th Street.)

    In 1845, Texas was annexed into the United States. The state’s Constitution of 1845 failed to mention higher education. On February 11, 1858, the Seventh Texas Legislature approved O.B. 102, an act to establish the University of Texas, which set aside $100,000 in United States bonds toward construction of the state’s first publicly funded university (the $100,000 was an allocation from the $10 million the state received pursuant to the Compromise of 1850 and Texas’s relinquishing claims to lands outside its present boundaries). The legislature also designated land reserved for the encouragement of railroad construction toward the university’s endowment. On January 31, 1860, the state legislature, wanting to avoid raising taxes, passed an act authorizing the money set aside for the University of Texas to be used for frontier defense in west Texas to protect settlers from Indian attacks.

    Texas’s secession from the Union and the American Civil War delayed repayment of the borrowed monies. At the end of the Civil War in 1865, The University of Texas’s endowment was just over $16,000 in warrants and nothing substantive had been done to organize the university’s operations. This effort to establish a University was again mandated by Article 7, Section 10 of the Texas Constitution of 1876 which directed the legislature to “establish, organize and provide for the maintenance, support and direction of a university of the first class, to be located by a vote of the people of this State, and styled “The University of Texas”.

    Additionally, Article 7, Section 11 of the 1876 Constitution established the Permanent University Fund, a sovereign wealth fund managed by the Board of Regents of the University of Texas and dedicated to the maintenance of the university. Because some state legislators perceived an extravagance in the construction of academic buildings of other universities, Article 7, Section 14 of the Constitution expressly prohibited the legislature from using the state’s general revenue to fund construction of university buildings. Funds for constructing university buildings had to come from the university’s endowment or from private gifts to the university, but the university’s operating expenses could come from the state’s general revenues.

    The 1876 Constitution also revoked the endowment of the railroad lands of the Act of 1858, but dedicated 1,000,000 acres (400,000 ha) of land, along with other property appropriated for the university, to the Permanent University Fund. This was greatly to the detriment of the university as the lands the Constitution of 1876 granted the university represented less than 5% of the value of the lands granted to the university under the Act of 1858 (the lands close to the railroads were quite valuable, while the lands granted the university were in far west Texas, distant from sources of transportation and water). The more valuable lands reverted to the fund to support general education in the state (the Special School Fund).

    On April 10, 1883, the legislature supplemented the Permanent University Fund with another 1,000,000 acres (400,000 ha) of land in west Texas granted to the Texas and Pacific Railroad but returned to the state as seemingly too worthless to even survey. The legislature additionally appropriated $256,272.57 to repay the funds taken from the university in 1860 to pay for frontier defense and for transfers to the state’s General Fund in 1861 and 1862. The 1883 grant of land increased the land in the Permanent University Fund to almost 2.2 million acres. Under the Act of 1858, the university was entitled to just over 1,000 acres (400 ha) of land for every mile of railroad built in the state. Had the 1876 Constitution not revoked the original 1858 grant of land, by 1883, the university lands would have totaled 3.2 million acres, so the 1883 grant was to restore lands taken from the university by the 1876 Constitution, not an act of munificence.

    On March 30, 1881, the legislature set forth the university’s structure and organization and called for an election to establish its location. By popular election on September 6, 1881, Austin (with 30,913 votes) was chosen as the site. Galveston, having come in second in the election (with 20,741 votes), was designated the location of the medical department (Houston was third with 12,586 votes). On November 17, 1882, on the original “College Hill,” an official ceremony commemorated the laying of the cornerstone of the Old Main building. University President Ashbel Smith, presiding over the ceremony, prophetically proclaimed “Texas holds embedded in its earth rocks and minerals which now lie idle because unknown, resources of incalculable industrial utility, of wealth and power. Smite the earth, smite the rocks with the rod of knowledge and fountains of unstinted wealth will gush forth.” The University of Texas officially opened its doors on September 15, 1883.

    Expansion and growth

    In 1890, George Washington Brackenridge donated $18,000 for the construction of a three-story brick mess hall known as Brackenridge Hall (affectionately known as “B.Hall”), one of the university’s most storied buildings and one that played an important place in university life until its demolition in 1952.

    The old Victorian-Gothic Main Building served as the central point of the campus’s 40-acre (16 ha) site, and was used for nearly all purposes. But by the 1930s, discussions arose about the need for new library space, and the Main Building was razed in 1934 over the objections of many students and faculty. The modern-day tower and Main Building were constructed in its place.

    In 1910, George Washington Brackenridge again displayed his philanthropy, this time donating 500 acres (200 ha) on the Colorado River to the university. A vote by the regents to move the campus to the donated land was met with outrage, and the land has only been used for auxiliary purposes such as graduate student housing. Part of the tract was sold in the late-1990s for luxury housing, and there are controversial proposals to sell the remainder of the tract. The Brackenridge Field Laboratory was established on 82 acres (33 ha) of the land in 1967.

    In 1916, Gov. James E. Ferguson became involved in a serious quarrel with the University of Texas. The controversy grew out of the board of regents’ refusal to remove certain faculty members whom the governor found objectionable. When Ferguson found he could not have his way, he vetoed practically the entire appropriation for the university. Without sufficient funding, the university would have been forced to close its doors. In the middle of the controversy, Ferguson’s critics brought to light a number of irregularities on the part of the governor. Eventually, the Texas House of Representatives prepared 21 charges against Ferguson, and the Senate convicted him on 10 of them, including misapplication of public funds and receiving $156,000 from an unnamed source. The Texas Senate removed Ferguson as governor and declared him ineligible to hold office.

    In 1921, the legislature appropriated $1.35 million for the purchase of land next to the main campus. However, expansion was hampered by the restriction against using state revenues to fund construction of university buildings as set forth in Article 7, Section 14 of the Constitution. With the completion of Santa Rita No. 1 well and the discovery of oil on university-owned lands in 1923, the university added significantly to its Permanent University Fund. The additional income from Permanent University Fund investments allowed for bond issues in 1931 and 1947, which allowed the legislature to address funding for the university along with the Agricultural and Mechanical College (now known as Texas A&M University). With sufficient funds to finance construction on both campuses, on April 8, 1931, the Forty Second Legislature passed H.B. 368. which dedicated the Agricultural and Mechanical College a 1/3 interest in the Available University Fund, the annual income from Permanent University Fund investments.

    The University of Texas was inducted into The Association of American Universities in 1929. During World War II, the University of Texas was one of 131 colleges and universities nationally that took part in the V-12 Navy College Training Program which offered students a path to a Navy commission.

    In 1950, following Sweatt v. Painter, the University of Texas was the first major university in the South to accept an African-American student. John S. Chase went on to become the first licensed African-American architect in Texas.

    In the fall of 1956, the first black students entered the university’s undergraduate class. Black students were permitted to live in campus dorms, but were barred from campus cafeterias. The University of Texas integrated its facilities and desegregated its dorms in 1965. UT, which had had an open admissions policy, adopted standardized testing for admissions in the mid-1950s at least in part as a conscious strategy to minimize the number of Black undergraduates, given that they were no longer able to simply bar their entry after the Brown decision.

    Following growth in enrollment after World War II, the university unveiled an ambitious master plan in 1960 designed for “10 years of growth” that was intended to “boost the University of Texas into the ranks of the top state universities in the nation.” In 1965, the Texas Legislature granted the university Board of Regents to use eminent domain to purchase additional properties surrounding the original 40 acres (160,000 m^2). The university began buying parcels of land to the north, south, and east of the existing campus, particularly in the Blackland neighborhood to the east and the Brackenridge tract to the southeast, in hopes of using the land to relocate the university’s intramural fields, baseball field, tennis courts, and parking lots.

    On March 6, 1967, the Sixtieth Texas Legislature changed the university’s official name from “The University of Texas” to “The University of Texas at Austin” to reflect the growth of the University of Texas System.

    Recent history

    The first presidential library on a university campus was dedicated on May 22, 1971, with former President Johnson, Lady Bird Johnson and then-President Richard Nixon in attendance. Constructed on the eastern side of the main campus, the Lyndon Baines Johnson Library and Museum is one of 13 presidential libraries administered by the National Archives and Records Administration.

    A statue of Martin Luther King Jr. was unveiled on campus in 1999 and subsequently vandalized. By 2004, John Butler, a professor at the McCombs School of Business suggested moving it to Morehouse College, a historically black college, “a place where he is loved”.

    The University of Texas at Austin has experienced a wave of new construction recently with several significant buildings. On April 30, 2006, the school opened the Blanton Museum of Art. In August 2008, the AT&T Executive Education and Conference Center opened, with the hotel and conference center forming part of a new gateway to the university. Also in 2008, Darrell K Royal-Texas Memorial Stadium was expanded to a seating capacity of 100,119, making it the largest stadium (by capacity) in the state of Texas at the time.

    On January 19, 2011, the university announced the creation of a 24-hour television network in partnership with ESPN, dubbed the Longhorn Network. ESPN agreed to pay a $300 million guaranteed rights fee over 20 years to the university and to IMG College, the school’s multimedia rights partner. The network covers the university’s intercollegiate athletics, music, cultural arts, and academics programs. The channel first aired in September 2011.

     
  • richardmitnick 7:29 pm on May 17, 2023 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: , , , , Material Sciences, , Precision measurements reveal connection between electron density and atomic arrangements in charge-ordered states of a superconducting copper-oxide material., ,   

    From The DOE’s Brookhaven National Laboratory: “‘Charge Density Wave’ Linked to Atomic Distortions in Would-be Superconductor” 

    From The DOE’s Brookhaven National Laboratory

    5.17.23
    Karen McNulty Walsh
    kmcnulty@bnl.gov
    (631) 344-8350

    Peter Genzer
    genzer@bnl.gov
    (631) 344-3174

    Precision measurements reveal connection between electron density and atomic arrangements in charge-ordered states of a superconducting copper-oxide material.

    1
    This image shows the positions of atoms (blue spheres) that make up the crystal lattice of a copper-oxide superconductor, superimposed on a map of electronic charge distribution (yellow is high charge density, dark spots are low) in charge-ordered states. Normally, the atoms can vibrate side-to-side (shadows represent average locations when vibrating). But when cooled to the point where the ladder-like charge density wave appears, the atomic positions shift along the “rungs” and the vibrations cease, locking the atoms in place. Understanding these charge-ordered states may help scientists unlock other interactions that trigger superconductivity at lower temperatures. BNL.

    What makes some materials carry current with no resistance? Scientists are trying to unravel the complex characteristics. Harnessing this property, known as superconductivity, could lead to perfectly efficient power lines, ultrafast computers, and a range of energy-saving advances. Understanding these materials when they aren’t superconducting is a key part of the quest to unlock that potential.

    “To solve the problem, we need to understand the many phases of these materials,” said Kazuhiro Fujita, a physicist in the Condensed Matter Physics & Materials Science Department of the U.S. Department of Energy’s Brookhaven National Laboratory. In a new study just published in Physical Review X [below], Fujita and his colleagues sought to find an explanation for an oddity observed in a phase that coexists with the superconducting phase of a copper-oxide superconductor.

    The anomaly was a mysterious disappearance of vibrational energy from the atoms that make up the material’s crystal lattice. “X-rays show that the atoms vibrate in particular ways,” Fujita said. But as the material is cooled, the x-ray studies showed, one mode of the vibrations stops.

    “Our study explored the relationship between the lattice structure and the electronic structure of this material to see if we could understand what was going on,” Fujita said.

    2
    Kazuhiro Fujita (left) with Brookhaven Lab co-authors Genda Gu and John Tranquada, all members of Brookhaven Lab’s Condensed Matter Physics and Materials Science Department, in front of the spectroscopic imaging scanning tunneling microscope (SI-STM) used in this study. BNL.

    The Brookhaven team used a tool called a spectroscopic imaging scanning tunneling microscope (SI-STM). By scanning the surface of the layered material with trillionths-of-a-meter precision, they could map the atoms and measure the distances between them—while simultaneously measuring the electric charge at each atomic-scale location.

    The measurements were sensitive enough to pick up the average positions of the atoms when they were vibrating—and showed how those positions shifted and became locked in place when the vibrations stopped. They also showed that the anomalous vibrational disappearance was directly linked to the emergence of a “charge density wave”—a modular distribution of charge density in the material.

    The electrons that make up the charge density wave are localized, meaning in fixed positions—and separate from the more mobile electrons that eventually carry the current in the superconducting phase, Fujita explained. These localized electrons form a repeating pattern of higher and lower densities that can be visualized as ladders laying side-by-side (see diagram). It’s the appearance of this pattern that distorts the normal vibrations of the atoms and shifts their positions along the direction of the “rungs.”

    “As the temperature goes down and the charge density wave (CDW) emerges, the vibrational energy goes down,” Fujita said. “By measuring both charge distribution and atomic structure simultaneously, you can see how the emergence of the CDW locks the atoms in place.”

    “This result implies that, as the atoms vibrate, the charge density wave interacts with the lattice and quenches the lattice. It stops the vibrations and distorts the lattice,” Fujita said.

    So that’s one more clue about how two of the characteristics of one phase of a superconducting material couple together. But there’s still a lot to uncover about these promising materials, Fujita said.

    “There are many variables. Electrons and the lattice are just two. We have to consider all of these and how they interact with each other to truly understand these materials,” he said.

    4

    The spectroscopic imaging scanning tunneling microscope (SI-STM) used in this study achieves its extreme precision by being completely isolated from its surroundings. It’s situated in a cube of concrete that “floats” on vibration-cushioning springs anchored to the ground separately from the foundation of the Interdisciplinary Science Building on Brookhaven’s campus. An electromagnetically isolating Faraday cage, sound-insulating foam, and three layers of doors provide complete protection from any external vibrations. BNL.

    “If there is any external vibration, that is going to kill the experiment,” Fujita said. “We need vibration isolation to perform the experiment correctly.”

    When making measurements, a needle hovers over the sample at a distance of about one angstrom—one ten-billionth of a meter, or about the diameter of an atom—but not touching the surface. Applying varying voltages allows electrons to tunnel (or jump) from the sample to the tip, creating a current. The strength of the current at each location maps out the material’s electron density while simultaneous spectroscopic imaging captures the sample’s topographical features—including atomic positions and variations caused by impurities and imperfections.

    Physical Review X

    See the full article here .

    Comments are invited and will be appreciated, especially if the reader finds any errors which I can correct. Use “Reply”.


    five-ways-keep-your-child-safe-school-shootings

    Please help promote STEM in your local schools.

    Stem Education Coalition

    One of ten national laboratories overseen and primarily funded by the The DOE Office of Science, The DOE’s Brookhaven National Laboratory conducts research in the physical, biomedical, and environmental sciences, as well as in energy technologies and national security. Brookhaven Lab also builds and operates major scientific facilities available to university, industry and government researchers. The Laboratory’s almost 3,000 scientists, engineers, and support staff are joined each year by more than 5,000 visiting researchers from around the world. Brookhaven is operated and managed for DOE’s Office of Science by Brookhaven Science Associates, a limited-liability company founded by Stony Brook University the largest academic user of Laboratory facilities, and Battelle, a nonprofit, applied science and technology organization.

    Research at BNL specializes in nuclear and high energy physics, energy science and technology, environmental and bioscience, nanoscience and national security. The 5300 acre campus contains several large research facilities, including the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider [below] and National Synchrotron Light Source II [below]. Seven Nobel prizes have been awarded for work conducted at Brookhaven lab.

    BNL is staffed by approximately 2,750 scientists, engineers, technicians, and support personnel, and hosts 4,000 guest investigators every year. The laboratory has its own police station, fire department, and ZIP code (11973). In total, the lab spans a 5,265-acre (21 km^2) area that is mostly coterminous with the hamlet of Upton, New York. BNL is served by a rail spur operated as-needed by the New York and Atlantic Railway. Co-located with the laboratory is the Upton, New York, forecast office of the National Weather Service.

    Major programs

    Although originally conceived as a nuclear research facility, Brookhaven Lab’s mission has greatly expanded. Its foci are now:

    Nuclear and high-energy physics
    Physics and chemistry of materials
    Environmental and climate research
    Nanomaterials
    Energy research
    Nonproliferation
    Structural biology
    Accelerator physics

    Operation

    Brookhaven National Lab was originally owned by the Atomic Energy Commission and is now owned by that agency’s successor, the United States Department of Energy (DOE). DOE subcontracts the research and operation to universities and research organizations. It is currently operated by Brookhaven Science Associates LLC, which is an equal partnership of Stony Brook University and Battelle Memorial Institute. From 1947 to 1998, it was operated by Associated Universities, Inc. (AUI), but AUI lost its contract in the wake of two incidents: a 1994 fire at the facility’s high-beam flux reactor that exposed several workers to radiation and reports in 1997 of a tritium leak into the groundwater of the Long Island Central Pine Barrens on which the facility sits.

    Foundations

    Following World War II, the US Atomic Energy Commission was created to support government-sponsored peacetime research on atomic energy. The effort to build a nuclear reactor in the American northeast was fostered largely by physicists Isidor Isaac Rabi and Norman Foster Ramsey Jr., who during the war witnessed many of their colleagues at Columbia University leave for new remote research sites following the departure of the Manhattan Project from its campus. Their effort to house this reactor near New York City was rivalled by a similar effort at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology to have a facility near Boston, Massachusetts. Involvement was quickly solicited from representatives of northeastern universities to the south and west of New York City such that this city would be at their geographic center. In March 1946 a nonprofit corporation was established that consisted of representatives from nine major research universities — Columbia University, Cornell University, Harvard University, Johns Hopkins University, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Princeton University, University of Pennsylvania, University of Rochester, and Yale University.

    Out of 17 considered sites in the Boston-Washington corridor, Camp Upton on Long Island was eventually chosen as the most suitable in consideration of space, transportation, and availability. The camp had been a training center from the US Army during both World War I and World War II. After the latter war, Camp Upton was deemed no longer necessary and became available for reuse. A plan was conceived to convert the military camp into a research facility.

    On March 21, 1947, the Camp Upton site was officially transferred from the U.S. War Department to the new U.S. Atomic Energy Commission (AEC), predecessor to the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE).

    Research and facilities

    Reactor history

    In 1947 construction began on the first nuclear reactor at Brookhaven, the Brookhaven Graphite Research Reactor. This reactor, which opened in 1950, was the first reactor to be constructed in the United States after World War II. The High Flux Beam Reactor operated from 1965 to 1999. In 1959 Brookhaven built the first US reactor specifically tailored to medical research, the Brookhaven Medical Research Reactor, which operated until 2000.

    Accelerator history

    In 1952 Brookhaven began using its first particle accelerator, the Cosmotron. At the time the Cosmotron was the world’s highest energy accelerator, being the first to impart more than 1 GeV of energy to a particle.

    BNL Cosmotron 1952-1966.

    The Cosmotron was retired in 1966, after it was superseded in 1960 by the new Alternating Gradient Synchrotron (AGS).

    BNL Alternating Gradient Synchrotron (AGS).

    The AGS was used in research that resulted in 3 Nobel prizes, including the discovery of the muon neutrino, the charm quark, and CP violation.

    In 1970 in BNL started the ISABELLE project to develop and build two proton intersecting storage rings.

    The groundbreaking for the project was in October 1978. In 1981, with the tunnel for the accelerator already excavated, problems with the superconducting magnets needed for the ISABELLE accelerator brought the project to a halt, and the project was eventually cancelled in 1983.

    The National Synchrotron Light Source operated from 1982 to 2014 and was involved with two Nobel Prize-winning discoveries. It has since been replaced by the National Synchrotron Light Source II. [below].

    BNL National Synchrotron Light Source.

    After ISABELLE’S cancellation, physicist at BNL proposed that the excavated tunnel and parts of the magnet assembly be used in another accelerator. In 1984 the first proposal for the accelerator now known as the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC)[below] was put forward. The construction got funded in 1991 and RHIC has been operational since 2000. One of the world’s only two operating heavy-ion colliders, RHIC is as of 2010 the second-highest-energy collider after the Large Hadron Collider (CH). RHIC is housed in a tunnel 2.4 miles (3.9 km) long and is visible from space.

    On January 9, 2020, it was announced by Paul Dabbar, undersecretary of the US Department of Energy Office of Science, that the BNL eRHIC design has been selected over the conceptual design put forward by DOE’s Thomas Jefferson National Accelerator Facility [Jlab] as the future Electron–ion collider (EIC) in the United States.

    In addition to the site selection, it was announced that the BNL EIC had acquired CD-0 from the Department of Energy. BNL’s eRHIC design proposes upgrading the existing Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider, which collides beams light to heavy ions including polarized protons, with a polarized electron facility, to be housed in the same tunnel.

    Other discoveries

    In 1958, Brookhaven scientists created one of the world’s first video games, Tennis for Two. In 1968 Brookhaven scientists patented Maglev, a transportation technology that utilizes magnetic levitation.

    Major facilities

    Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC), which was designed to research quark–gluon plasma and the sources of proton spin. Until 2009 it was the world’s most powerful heavy ion collider. It is the only collider of spin-polarized protons.

    Center for Functional Nanomaterials (CFN), used for the study of nanoscale materials.

    BNL National Synchrotron Light Source II, Brookhaven’s newest user facility, opened in 2015 to replace the National Synchrotron Light Source (NSLS), which had operated for 30 years. NSLS was involved in the work that won the 2003 and 2009 Nobel Prize in Chemistry.

    Alternating Gradient Synchrotron, a particle accelerator that was used in three of the lab’s Nobel prizes.
    Accelerator Test Facility, generates, accelerates and monitors particle beams.
    Tandem Van de Graaff, once the world’s largest electrostatic accelerator.

    Computational Science resources, including access to a massively parallel Blue Gene series supercomputer that is among the fastest in the world for scientific research, run jointly by Brookhaven National Laboratory and Stony Brook University-SUNY.

    Interdisciplinary Science Building, with unique laboratories for studying high-temperature superconductors and other materials important for addressing energy challenges.
    NASA Space Radiation Laboratory, where scientists use beams of ions to simulate cosmic rays and assess the risks of space radiation to human space travelers and equipment.

    Off-site contributions

    It is a contributing partner to the ATLAS experiment, one of the four detectors located at the The European Organization for Nuclear Research [La Organización Europea para la Investigación Nuclear][Organization européenne pour la recherche nucléaire] [Europäische Organization für Kernforschung](CH)[CERN] Large Hadron Collider(LHC). Credit: CERN.

    The European Organization for Nuclear Research [La Organización Europea para la Investigación Nuclear][Organization européenne pour la recherche nucléaire] [Europäische Organization für Kernforschung](CH)[CERN] map. Credit: CERN.

    It is currently operating at The European Organization for Nuclear Research [La Organización Europea para la Investigación Nuclear][Organization européenne pour la recherche nucléaire] [Europäische Organization für Kernforschung](CH) [CERN] near Geneva, Switzerland.

    Brookhaven was also responsible for the design of the Spallation Neutron Source at DOE’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory, Tennessee.

    DOE’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory Spallation Neutron Source annotated.

    Brookhaven plays a role in a range of neutrino research projects around the world, including the Daya Bay Neutrino Experiment (CN) nuclear power plant, approximately 52 kilometers northeast of Hong Kong and 45 kilometers east of Shenzhen, China.

    Daya Bay Neutrino Experiment (CN) nuclear power plant, approximately 52 kilometers northeast of Hong Kong and 45 kilometers east of Shenzhen, China .

     
  • richardmitnick 8:32 am on May 11, 2023 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: "A timber triumph - Seismically resilient and sustainable", A 10-story building designed to withstand Seattle-area earthquakes, A seismically resilient and sustainable mid-rise building constructed entirely out of timber., , , Design includes a unique rocking wall system designed by the University of Washington team., , Material Sciences, More than 800 sensors were installed throughout the structure., Similar things are happening in San Francisco and Los Angeles and Portland., Testing the 10-story building at one of the world’s largest shake tables at the University of California-San Diego., The building undergoing testing was designed to be located in the heart of Seattle., , The seismic performance of taller buildings crafted out of mass timber is not well-understood., , There are not currently any buildings in the world that are 10 stories and have structural systems made entirely of timber., This project is paving the way for more widespread use of mass timber — layers of wood bonded together — in taller structures particularly in earthquake-prone regions.   

    From Civil & Environmental Engineering In The College of Engineering At The University of Washington: “A timber triumph – Seismically resilient and sustainable” 

    From Civil & Environmental Engineering

    In

    The College of Engineering

    At

    The University of Washington

    5.8.23
    Brooke Fisher

    It may sound like a tall order: a seismically resilient and sustainable mid-rise building constructed entirely out of timber. But a team of researchers is proving that this is indeed feasible by testing the tallest structure to date, a 10-story building designed to withstand Seattle-area earthquakes.

    1
    A 10-story building constructed from mass timber and designed to withstand Seattle-area earthquakes is tested at one of the largest shake tables in San Diego. Photo credit: University of California-San Diego.

    “There is a need in urban areas like Seattle for mid-rise buildings, and similar things are happening in San Francisco, Los Angeles and Portland,” says CEE Professor Jeffrey Berman, a principal investigator on the project. “We are trying to make these new developments more sustainable and seismically resilient.”

    The project is paving the way for more widespread use of mass timber — layers of wood bonded together — in taller structures, particularly in earthquake-prone regions. Researchers from across the country gathered in early May to test the 10-story building at one of the world’s largest shake tables at the University of California-San Diego. The project breaks ground on numerous fronts. Not only is it the world’s tallest building to be tested on a shake table, but the structure is crafted entirely out of timber, including a unique rocking wall system designed by the University of Washington team.

    2
    Standing on top of the 10-story building, Professor Jeff Berman and Ph.D. student Sarah Wichman oversee the construction of the rocking walls and connections.

    “Mass timber is a new material, so we are testing it in a taller building as a proof of concept and to study if this is actually feasible — there are not currently any buildings in the world that are 10 stories and have structural systems made entirely of timber,” says CEE Ph.D. student Sarah Wichman.

    Funded by the National Science Foundation, the Natural Hazards Engineering Research Infrastructure (NHERI) TallWood project is a collaborative effort between university researchers and engineering firms. The UW team includes Berman, Wichman and master’s student Davis Wright. They are collaborating with lead institution Colorado School of Mines, University of Nevada, Reno, Colorado State University, Washington State University, University of California San Diego, Oregon State University and Lehigh University. Local industry partners include KPFF Consulting Engineers and LEVER Architecture.

    Designed for Seattle

    3
    A rendering of the 10-story building highlights the placement of four rocking walls that make up the lateral force resisting system. Colors indicate the different types of mass timber used. Courtesy of LEVER Architecture.

    Since the seismic performance of taller buildings crafted out of mass timber is not well-understood, the building undergoing testing was designed to be located in the heart of Seattle — the Capitol Hill neighborhood. Seattle was selected due to the city’s risk of significant, yet uncommon, seismic events. The project builds upon a successful test of a two-story timber building in 2017, which wasn’t location-specific.

    “We don’t think much more is to be learned at four, five or six stories, but at 10 stories there’s a lot to learn in how these systems behave,” Berman explains. “And so we picked the location in Capitol Hill and did exactly what you need to do if designing a 10-story mass timber building in the city.”

    The researchers worked closely with both an architecture firm and structural engineers. Since specifications for this type of timber structure are not yet included in the building code, additional requirements included a site-specific hazard assessment. The resulting information — from soil types to fault lines — informed the building design.

    “Based on findings from the two-story test, we think we’ve got a really good handle on how the 10-story building will perform,” Wichman says. “We’ve used our models to validate the design — the damage should be minimal and predictable.”

    A sustainable stability system

    The project is especially unique because the rocking wall system, which stabilizes the structure in the event of an earthquake, is also crafted out of timber. This type of lateral stability system is typically constructed from more traditional materials such as concrete or steel.

    4
    A rocking wall is prepared to be lowered into the structure. Photo credit: ©Timberlab/FLOR Projects.

    For taller buildings, a resilient lateral system becomes especially important due to increasing forces from a variety of sources, including earthquakes and even wind. Rather than prevent the building from moving, the rocking wall system is specially designed to rock back and forth during a seismic event. This enables the structure to snap back into its original position with minimal damage.

    “That’s contrary to what’s common in earthquake engineering where we expect the structure to be damaged and it may even need to be torn down after a big earthquake,” Berman says. “The rocking wall system is designed to be resilient even in large earthquakes. If there is damage, it will be easily repairable.”

    The researchers are evaluating the performance of two primary types of mass timber, Cross Laminated Timber and Mass Plywood Panels, which are relatively new to the building scene and are slowly gaining popularity as a greener alternative. In the construction industry, concrete is one of the most widely used materials, the production of which is responsible for about 8% of global carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions.

    “Trees are a renewable resource. Growing trees sustainably and using them is better than concrete and steel, which leave a lot of CO2 emissions,” Wichman explains.

    Earthquake simulations

    5
    The testing of the 10-story building is being conducted at USCD’s recently upgraded outdoor simulator. Photo credit: ©Timberlab/FLOR Projects

    During the month long testing process, a series of earthquakes will be simulated with increasing intensity. The final phase will include ground motions for the maximum earthquakes that buildings are designed for in Seattle. The city has two primary faults: The Seattle Fault that runs east-west through the middle of the city, capable of earthquakes up to 7.4 magnitude; and the Cascadia Subduction Zone along the coast, capable of a magnitude 9 earthquake.



    More than 800 sensors were installed throughout the structure. The data will enable the UW researchers to refine their computer models, which they hope will be utilized by industry to predict the performance of similar buildings. The researchers also hope their findings will inform building code requirements for timber structures.

    “We want people to be using mass timber everywhere,” Berman says. “This is providing a demonstration and validation of this particular system and is aimed at higher seismic zones, largely along the West Coast, but many of the principles from the building itself can apply anywhere.”


    Today’s Tests which was run on the Largest Outdoor Seismic Shake Table. Motion was Chi Chi XY.
    Video of the testing on May 9, 2023.

    See the full article here .

    Comments are invited and will be appreciated, especially if the reader finds any errors which I can correct. Use “Reply”.


    five-ways-keep-your-child-safe-school-shootings

    Please help promote STEM in your local schools.

    Stem Education Coalition

    The University of Washington Civil & Environmental Engineering

    Take a moment to look around you. Buildings, bridges, running water and transit systems are the work of civil and environmental engineers.
    2
    Civil and environmental engineers design, construct and manage the essential facilities, systems and structures around us. Their work plays a crucial role in enabling livable, sustainable cities, healthy environments and strong economies.

    At the University of Washington, Civil & Environmental Engineering students and faculty are taking on the challenges presented by our aging national infrastructure, while developing new approaches to address the needs of urban systems and communities around the globe. UW CEE is dedicated to providing students with leading-edge technical skill development and opportunities for hands-on practice to enable them to tackle complex engineering problems in response to changing technological and societal needs.

    Housed in an outstanding university, UW CEE offers one of the world’s premier programs in the field. The UW College of Engineering undergraduate program is ranked #18 and CEE’s graduate programs are ranked #16 for civil engineering and #27 for environmental engineering for 2020, according to U.S. News & World Report.

    The University of Washington College of Engineering

    Mission, Facts, and Stats

    Our mission is to develop outstanding engineers and ideas that change the world.

    Faculty:
    275 faculty (25.2% women)

    Achievements:

    128 NSF Young Investigator/Early Career Awards since 1984
    32 Sloan Foundation Research Awards
    2 MacArthur Foundation Fellows (2007 and 2011)

    A national leader in educating engineers, each year the College turns out new discoveries, inventions and top-flight graduates, all contributing to the strength of our economy and the vitality of our community.

    Engineering innovation

    Engineers drive the innovation economy and are vital to solving society’s most challenging problems. The College of Engineering is a key part of a world-class research university in a thriving hub of aerospace, biotechnology, global health and information technology innovation. Over 50% of UW startups in FY18 came from the College of Engineering.

    Commitment to diversity and access

    The College of Engineering is committed to developing and supporting a diverse student body and faculty that reflect and elevate the populations we serve. We are a national leader in women in engineering; 25.5% of our faculty are women compared to 17.4% nationally. We offer a robust set of diversity programs for students and faculty.

    Research and commercialization

    The University of Washington is an engine of economic growth, today ranked third in the nation for the number of startups launched each year, with 65 companies having been started in the last five years alone by UW students and faculty, or with technology developed here. The College of Engineering is a key contributor to these innovations, and engineering faculty, students or technology are behind half of all UW startups. In FY19, UW received $1.58 billion in total research awards from federal and nonfederal sources.

    u-washington-campus

    The University of Washington is one of the world’s preeminent public universities. Our impact on individuals, on our region, and on the world is profound — whether we are launching young people into a boundless future or confronting the grand challenges of our time through undaunted research and scholarship. Ranked number 10 in the world in Shanghai Jiao Tong University rankings and educating more than 54,000 students annually, our students and faculty work together to turn ideas into impact and in the process transform lives and our world. For more about our impact on the world, every day.
    So what defines us —the students, faculty and community members at the University of Washington? Above all, it’s our belief in possibility and our unshakable optimism. It’s a connection to others, both near and far. It’s a hunger that pushes us to tackle challenges and pursue progress. It’s the conviction that together we can create a world of good. Join us on the journey.

     
  • richardmitnick 3:43 pm on May 8, 2023 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: "X-ray beams help researchers learn new tricks from old metals", A new understanding of materials important to the production and use of hydrogen., , Hydrogen can be produced from water using renewable energy or excess energy and transported as a fuel and converted back to water to produce energy for consumers., Material Sciences, , Platinum and its alloys are best in catalyzing and boosting the water-splitting process by accelerating the exchange of electrons., The Advanced Photon Source and a nanoscale grain of platinum unlock new techniques to help the hydrogen economy., The APS currently delivers X-ray beams that are up to a billion times brighter than those used by a dentist., , The goal is to make hydrogen production and usage more efficient and less expensive., Understanding and developing materials enabling efficient production and usage of hydrogen are key to the hydrogen economy., When the upgraded APS comes online in 2024 its X-ray beams will be up to 500 times brighter than today.,   

    From The DOE’s Argonne National Laboratory: “X-ray beams help researchers learn new tricks from old metals” 

    Argonne Lab

    From The DOE’s Argonne National Laboratory

    5.8.23
    Anna Marie Tomczyk

    Argonne and Stanford University researchers used ultrabright X-ray beams to understand materials important to the production of hydrogen.

    The Advanced Photon Source [below] and a nanoscale grain of platinum unlock new techniques to help the hydrogen economy.

    1
    An intense X-ray beam (in pink) is focused into a small spot on a single nanoscale grain of a platinum electrode (highlighted within the droplet). Diffraction interference patterns from that grain were collected on an X-ray detector (the black screen). (Illustration by Dina Sheyfer, Argonne National Laboratory.)

    A research team led by the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Argonne National Laboratory used powerful X-ray beams to unlock a new understanding of materials important to the production and use of hydrogen. The goal is to make hydrogen production and usage more efficient and less expensive, offering a better fuel for transportation and industry.

    “Efficient hydrogen production is key,” said Hoydoo You, an Argonne senior physicist. ​“Hydrogen is the lightest energy storage material. Hydrogen can be produced from water using renewable energy or excess energy, transported as a fuel, and converted back to water to produce energy for consumers. Platinum and its alloys are best in catalyzing and boosting the water-splitting process by accelerating the exchange of electrons.”

    Understanding and developing materials enabling efficient production and usage of hydrogen are key to the hydrogen economy. The researchers made a first step in developing a tool that enables them to characterize the materials with a new level of detail, ultimately producing the best materials for hydrogen production and use.

    “This will make production and use of hydrogen less costly and more environmentally friendly,” You said.

    The research team made use of the Advanced Photon Source (APS), a DOE Office of Science user facility at Argonne. Working at the APS, researchers aimed an intense X-ray beam onto a single grain of platinum. Diffraction patterns from that grain were collected on an X-ray detector. Those patterns were converted into images of the sample using customized computer algorithms.

    A nanodroplet chemical cell, created with a tiny pipette tip (a tool for making a small droplet of liquid), was used to control the chemical reaction happening on the platinum grain to produce hydrogen in an electrolyzer. An electrolyzer is a device for producing hydrogen fuel from water using electricity; the device in a reverse operation, known as a fuel cell, converts hydrogen fuel back to electricity.

    “The reaction was controlled by applying voltage, directed through an electrolyte in the nano-pipette onto the grain being studied,” said Argonne physicist Matt Highland. He designed the initial prototype of this new tool. This prototype enabled the investigation of a single nanograin and opened a door for scanning capability over all grains in a realistic electrolyzer or fuel cell when the APS upgrade is completed. He also helped with the data collection and experiments.

    Argonne physicists Ross Harder and Wonsuk Cha worked at the APS beamline 34-ID-C, where the experiments were performed, and helped with integrating the new electrochemistry tool in the existing instrument.

    “The ability to do localized electrochemistry while creating a new picture of the way things were happening, at a single particle level, was incredible,” Harder said.

    The APS currently delivers X-ray beams that are up to a billion times brighter than those used by a dentist. But an extensive upgrade will make the APS even more powerful. When the upgraded APS comes online in 2024, its X-ray beams will be up to 500 times brighter than today [see https://sciencesprings.wordpress.com/2023/05/08/from-science-magazine-a-farewell-to-the-particle-accelerator-that-was-my-fathers-baby/ ]. This means that techniques like the one used in this research will get even better after the upgrade.

    “The APS upgrade will help us see things happen in real time in the material,” said Harder. ​“Measurement times could become fast enough that we can move from one particle to another, and we could see how they are interacting with the electrochemical environment and each other.”

    “Important processes like battery charging and corrosion require the real-time imaging of grains to understand a full picture of the process,” said Argonne assistant physicist Dina Sheyfer. ​“We believe the added brightness of the APS upgrade with our new tool will enable studies we can only dream about today.”

    A paper based on the study was published in American Chemical Society’s Nano Letters.
    https://pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/acs.nanolett.2c01015#

    Co-authors are Sheyfer, Highland, Harder, Cha and You with Argonne’s Stephan O. Hruszkewycz and former Argonne scientist Tomoya Kawaguchi (Tohoku University). Other contributors include Stanford University’s Ruperto G. Mariano and Matthew W. Kanan.

    Funding for this research came, in part, from the DOE Office of Basic Energy Sciences, Materials Sciences and Engineering Division and the Scientific User Facilities Division.

    See the full article here .

    Comments are invited and will be appreciated, especially if the reader finds any errors which I can correct. Use “Reply”.

    five-ways-keep-your-child-safe-school-shootings

    Please help promote STEM in your local schools.

    Stem Education Coalition

    The DOE’s Argonne National Laboratory seeks solutions to pressing national problems in science and technology. The nation’s first national laboratory, Argonne conducts leading-edge basic and applied scientific research in virtually every scientific discipline. Argonne researchers work closely with researchers from hundreds of companies, universities, and federal, state and municipal agencies to help them solve their is a science and engineering research national laboratory operated by UChicago Argonne LLC for the United States Department of Energy. The facility is located in Lemont, Illinois, outside of Chicago, and is the largest national laboratory by size and scope in the Midwest.

    Argonne had its beginnings in the Metallurgical Laboratory of the University of Chicago, formed in part to carry out Enrico Fermi’s work on nuclear reactors for the Manhattan Project during World War II. After the war, it was designated as the first national laboratory in the United States on July 1, 1946. In the post-war era the lab focused primarily on non-weapon related nuclear physics, designing and building the first power-producing nuclear reactors, helping design the reactors used by the United States’ nuclear navy, and a wide variety of similar projects. In 1994, the lab’s nuclear mission ended, and today it maintains a broad portfolio in basic science research, energy storage and renewable energy, environmental sustainability, supercomputing, and national security.

    UChicago Argonne, LLC, the operator of the laboratory, “brings together the expertise of the University of Chicago (the sole member of the LLC) with Jacobs Engineering Group Inc.” Argonne is a part of the expanding Illinois Technology and Research Corridor. Argonne formerly ran a smaller facility called Argonne National Laboratory-West (or simply Argonne-West) in Idaho next to the Idaho National Engineering and Environmental Laboratory. In 2005, the two Idaho-based laboratories merged to become the DOE’s Idaho National Laboratory.

    What would become Argonne began in 1942 as the Metallurgical Laboratory at the University of Chicago, which had become part of the Manhattan Project. The Met Lab built Chicago Pile-1, the world’s first nuclear reactor, under the stands of the University of Chicago sports stadium. Considered unsafe, in 1943, CP-1 was reconstructed as CP-2, in what is today known as Red Gate Woods but was then the Argonne Forest of the Cook County Forest Preserve District near Palos Hills. The lab was named after the surrounding forest, which in turn was named after the Forest of Argonne in France where U.S. troops fought in World War I. Fermi’s pile was originally going to be constructed in the Argonne forest, and construction plans were set in motion, but a labor dispute brought the project to a halt. Since speed was paramount, the project was moved to the squash court under Stagg Field, the football stadium on the campus of the University of Chicago. Fermi told them that he was sure of his calculations, which said that it would not lead to a runaway reaction, which would have contaminated the city.

    Other activities were added to Argonne over the next five years. On July 1, 1946, the “Metallurgical Laboratory” was formally re-chartered as Argonne National Laboratory for “cooperative research in nucleonics.” At the request of the U.S. Atomic Energy Commission, it began developing nuclear reactors for the nation’s peaceful nuclear energy program. In the late 1940s and early 1950s, the laboratory moved to a larger location in unincorporated DuPage County, Illinois and established a remote location in Idaho, called “Argonne-West,” to conduct further nuclear research.

    In quick succession, the laboratory designed and built Chicago Pile 3 (1944), the world’s first heavy-water moderated reactor, and the Experimental Breeder Reactor I (Chicago Pile 4), built-in Idaho, which lit a string of four light bulbs with the world’s first nuclear-generated electricity in 1951. A complete list of the reactors designed and, in most cases, built and operated by Argonne can be viewed in the, Reactors Designed by Argonne page. The knowledge gained from the Argonne experiments conducted with these reactors 1) formed the foundation for the designs of most of the commercial reactors currently used throughout the world for electric power generation and 2) inform the current evolving designs of liquid-metal reactors for future commercial power stations.

    Conducting classified research, the laboratory was heavily secured; all employees and visitors needed badges to pass a checkpoint, many of the buildings were classified, and the laboratory itself was fenced and guarded. Such alluring secrecy drew visitors both authorized—including King Leopold III of Belgium and Queen Frederica of Greece—and unauthorized. Shortly past 1 a.m. on February 6, 1951, Argonne guards discovered reporter Paul Harvey near the 10-foot (3.0 m) perimeter fence, his coat tangled in the barbed wire. Searching his car, guards found a previously prepared four-page broadcast detailing the saga of his unauthorized entrance into a classified “hot zone”. He was brought before a federal grand jury on charges of conspiracy to obtain information on national security and transmit it to the public, but was not indicted.

    Not all nuclear technology went into developing reactors, however. While designing a scanner for reactor fuel elements in 1957, Argonne physicist William Nelson Beck put his own arm inside the scanner and obtained one of the first ultrasound images of the human body. Remote manipulators designed to handle radioactive materials laid the groundwork for more complex machines used to clean up contaminated areas, sealed laboratories or caves. In 1964, the “Janus” reactor opened to study the effects of neutron radiation on biological life, providing research for guidelines on safe exposure levels for workers at power plants, laboratories and hospitals. Scientists at Argonne pioneered a technique to analyze the moon’s surface using alpha radiation, which launched aboard the Surveyor 5 in 1967 and later analyzed lunar samples from the Apollo 11 mission.

    In addition to nuclear work, the laboratory maintained a strong presence in the basic research of physics and chemistry. In 1955, Argonne chemists co-discovered the elements einsteinium and fermium, elements 99 and 100 in the periodic table. In 1962, laboratory chemists produced the first compound of the inert noble gas xenon, opening up a new field of chemical bonding research. In 1963, they discovered the hydrated electron.

    High-energy physics made a leap forward when Argonne was chosen as the site of the 12.5 GeV Zero Gradient Synchrotron, a proton accelerator that opened in 1963. A bubble chamber allowed scientists to track the motions of subatomic particles as they zipped through the chamber; in 1970, they observed the neutrino in a hydrogen bubble chamber for the first time.

    Meanwhile, the laboratory was also helping to design the reactor for the world’s first nuclear-powered submarine, the U.S.S. Nautilus, which steamed for more than 513,550 nautical miles (951,090 km). The next nuclear reactor model was Experimental Boiling Water Reactor, the forerunner of many modern nuclear plants, and Experimental Breeder Reactor II (EBR-II), which was sodium-cooled, and included a fuel recycling facility. EBR-II was later modified to test other reactor designs, including a fast-neutron reactor and, in 1982, the Integral Fast Reactor concept—a revolutionary design that reprocessed its own fuel, reduced its atomic waste and withstood safety tests of the same failures that triggered the Chernobyl and Three Mile Island disasters. In 1994, however, the U.S. Congress terminated funding for the bulk of Argonne’s nuclear programs.

    Argonne moved to specialize in other areas, while capitalizing on its experience in physics, chemical sciences and metallurgy. In 1987, the laboratory was the first to successfully demonstrate a pioneering technique called plasma wakefield acceleration, which accelerates particles in much shorter distances than conventional accelerators. It also cultivated a strong battery research program.

    Following a major push by then-director Alan Schriesheim, the laboratory was chosen as the site of the Advanced Photon Source, a major X-ray facility which was completed in 1995 and produced the brightest X-rays in the world at the time of its construction.

    On 19 March 2019, it was reported in the Chicago Tribune that the laboratory was constructing the world’s most powerful supercomputer. Costing $500 million it will have the processing power of 1 quintillion flops. Applications will include the analysis of stars and improvements in the power grid.

    With employees from more than 60 nations, Argonne is managed by UChicago Argonne, LLC for the U.S. Department of Energy’s Office of Science. For more visit http://www.anl.gov.

    About the Advanced Photon Source

    The U. S. Department of Energy Office of Science’s Advanced Photon Source (APS) at Argonne National Laboratory is one of the world’s most productive X-ray light source facilities. The APS provides high-brightness X-ray beams to a diverse community of researchers in materials science, chemistry, condensed matter physics, the life and environmental sciences, and applied research. These X-rays are ideally suited for explorations of materials and biological structures; elemental distribution; chemical, magnetic, electronic states; and a wide range of technologically important engineering systems from batteries to fuel injector sprays, all of which are the foundations of our nation’s economic, technological, and physical well-being. Each year, more than 5,000 researchers use the APS to produce over 2,000 publications detailing impactful discoveries, and solve more vital biological protein structures than users of any other X-ray light source research facility. APS scientists and engineers innovate technology that is at the heart of advancing accelerator and light-source operations. This includes the insertion devices that produce extreme-brightness X-rays prized by researchers, lenses that focus the X-rays down to a few nanometers, instrumentation that maximizes the way the X-rays interact with samples being studied, and software that gathers and manages the massive quantity of data resulting from discovery research at the APS.

    With employees from more than 60 nations, Argonne is managed by UChicago Argonne, LLC for the U.S. Department of Energy’s Office of Science. For more visit http://www.anl.gov.

    Argonne is managed by UChicago Argonne, LLC for the U.S. Department of Energy’s Office of Science

     
  • richardmitnick 10:17 am on May 8, 2023 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: "A farewell to the particle accelerator that was my father’s baby", "PDB": The Protein Data Bank, A “fourth-generation” design: The new machine will double the current in the ring to 200 milliamps., A design invariably contains elements that builders do not yet know how to make., , , Compared with previous sources the Argonne machine produced more-compact electron beams that generated far more intense x-rays., In the 1960s scientists began to siphon the x-ray radiation from electron accelerators to study materials., In the old APS the beam always bent inward to the right. In the new design it will occasionally bend outward to the left. These kinks give rise to new dynamics that shrink the beam., It took the team 3 years to complete the conceptual design., Like the other 70 x-ray synchrotrons around the world the APS turns what was a nuisance into a powerful resource for studying materials., Material Sciences, Of the 201000 protein structures in the PDB 72% come from x-ray synchrotrons. Of those 30466 come from the APS., , , The Advanced Photon Source at the DOE's Argonne National Laboratory, The first goal was to make the most compact electron beam possible which would then radiate the brightest x-ray beams., The original APS’s beam measured 10 micrometers high and 275 micrometers wide. The new APS’s beam will measure 3 micrometers high and 15 micrometers wide—less than the width of a human hair., Third-generation x-ray synchrotrons have revolutionized the study of the structure and function of proteins and other biomolecules., When accelerators were built just for experiments in particle physics it was an unavoidable waste., Workers will replace the original APS magnets with 1321 new ones and change the entire vacuum system. They are swapping out essentially the whole ring,   

    From “Science Magazine” : “A farewell to the particle accelerator that was my father’s baby” 

    From “Science Magazine”

    5.4.23
    Adrian Cho

    1
    The Advanced Photon Source at the DOE’s Argonne National Laboratory is one of the brightest and most productive x-ray sources in the world. Credit: Argonne National Laboratory.

    “Last week technicians at the DOE’s Argonne National Laboratory began to disassemble a particle accelerator known as the Advanced Photon Source (APS), a ring 1.1 kilometers around that since 1995 has shone as one of the world’s brightest sources of x-rays. It’s hardly the end for the facility, which annually serves nearly 6000 scientists from myriad fields. Within a year, workers will replace the electron accelerator with a new one that will boost the intensity of the APS’s output x-ray beams by a factor of 500. A major scientific facility will be rejuvenated. That’s not unusual.

    For me personally, however, the dismantling of the original APS evokes strong emotions. My father, Yanglai Cho, was an accelerator physicist who spent his entire career at Argonne, a Department of Energy (DOE) laboratory outside of Chicago. Forty years ago, he led the small team that hammered out the conceptual design for the machine. In my mind, it was his baby. When dad died in 2015 at age 82—4 years after a devastating stroke—I took comfort in the thought that he lived on in that accelerator. Now, it, too, will be gone.

    I was a teenager when, in the early 1980s, my dad started musing about the accelerator. I loved him dearly, but, as many people do, I had a complicated relationship with my father. He could be tyrannical and demanding, self-centered and remote. ‘I don’t care what you do just as long as you’re the best at it,’ he would pronounce to me or one of my two brothers and then leave us to flounder on our own. Back then, the APS was this mysterious thing that occupied his time and his mind.

    I did follow my father into physics, eventually grinding out a Ph.D. However, my path led me into science journalism. Over the past 20 years, I have written about many big scientific facilities, ranging from atom smashers and gravitational-wave detectors to x-ray lasers and neutron sources. I have never built anything, but I have learned a few things about what it takes to create these often-astounding machines. And that has helped me better understand my father.

    ‘He was a superb and visionary accelerator physicist, and he transformed many large machines at Argonne and elsewhere,’ says one former DOE official who still consults for the agency and therefore asked not to be named. ‘He was also a wonderful colleague and teacher.’ Having locked horns with my father so many times, I marvel at that last assessment. Yet, thinking about his work, I’ve come to appreciate how a South Korean immigrant with a thick accent and a fiery temper could flourish in an unusual and demanding field.

    A revolutionary tool

    Like the other 70 x-ray synchrotrons around the world, the APS turns what was a nuisance into a powerful resource for studying materials. It accelerates electrons within a long vacuum tube to high energy and near–light-speed, while magnets steer them around the ring. The circulating electron beam radiates x-rays, just as a wet washcloth twirled overhead flings droplets of water. That synchrotron radiation saps the electrons’ energy, so when accelerators were built just for experiments in particle physics, it was an unavoidable waste.

    In the 1960s, scientists began to siphon the x-ray radiation from electron accelerators to study materials by, say, measuring their absorption spectra. The first major dedicated sources emerged in the following decade. The APS led a wave of larger, higher energy third-generation sources, along with the European Synchrotron Radiation Facility (ESRF) in Grenoble, France, and the SPring-8 facility in Hyogo, Japan.

    Compared with previous sources, the Argonne machine produced more-compact electron beams that generated far more intense x-rays. It also pushed into the regime of hard x-rays, those with wavelengths shorter than 0.1 nanometers, which are ideal for probing a material’s atomic-scale structure. It replenished its electrons not every 12 hours, but every 30 seconds, keeping the intensity of the x-ray beams rock steady.

    Most practically, the APS helped revolutionize the reliability of x-ray sources, says David Moncton, a physicist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology who was Argonne’s associate lab director for the APS from 1987 to 2001. Earlier, more persnickety machines would operate between 50% and 75% of the available time, vexing officials trying to schedule a facility’s users. The APS pushed that reliability factor to 99%, Moncton says. ‘If you just buy equipment, put it together, and cross your fingers, you will not wind up with a machine that performs 99% of the time.’

    Such attributes have made the APS a font of discovery. Perhaps most strikingly, it and other third-generation x-ray synchrotrons have revolutionized the study of the structure and function of proteins and other biomolecules, says Helen Berman, a structural biologist at Rutgers University and a co-founder of the global Protein Data Bank (PDB). Before probing molecules with x-rays, structural biologists must crystallize them, an arduous task. Berman says the APS and other third-generation sources provided “the ability to take data with a very intense x-ray source and use much smaller crystals.”

    Of the 201,000 protein structures in the PDB, 72% come from x-ray synchrotrons. Of those, 30,466 come from the APS—51% of the yield from U.S. synchrotrons. Data from the APS helped win two Nobel Prizes in Chemistry—in 2009, for studies of the function and structure of the ribosome, the cell’s proteinmaking machinery; and in 2012, for studies of cell membrane proteins called G protein-coupled receptors. The APS helped determine the structure of the SARS-CoV-2 virus, which causes COVID-19, and develop Paxlovid, a drug used to treat it.

    The APS supports many other types of work, as I saw last month when I walked around its expansive, tunnel-like experimental hall. Within the facility’s 68 experimental end stations, scientists are analyzing the quantum properties of magnetic materials, developing biologically inspired adhesives, and even studying how the atomic-scale structure of lead-acid batteries changes as they run, a study made possible by the intensity of the APS’s x-rays.

    A vision and a quest

    All of this was a gleam in scientists’ eyes when my dad started to think about the accelerator—which he wanted to name Phoebus, for the Greek god of the Sun. In 1983, he was helping fix a troubled smaller x-ray synchrotron called Aladdin at the University of Wisconsin-Madison when a review panel released a report arguing for a larger hard x-ray source. Sitting in the Aladdin control room, my dad read the report and then dashed back to Argonne to urge lab officials to fund R&D on the machine and to push for Argonne to host it, Moncton says.

    The lab badly needed such a project. It had once had a thriving particle physics program, which is what had attracted my father. But in 1979, Argonne shut down its proton accelerator, which had been superseded by a much bigger, new one at the DOE’s Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory 50 kilometers away. ‘The lab was struggling for a mission,’ Moncton says. ‘Yang immediately thought that this made a good potential project and was of a size to carry the lab into its future.’

    The project also gave my father something he needed personally. Like most of us, he was a jumble of mismatched puzzle pieces. He could be tetchy one moment, and ridiculously overindulgent the next. My parents had divorced when I was young, yet he was a constant presence, letting himself into our mother’s house as he pleased. He had contracted polio as a child and had a withered leg. Nevertheless, he liked to take us bowling, even if he would sometimes fall. He loved to go out for lunch and, oddly, liked John Wayne movies. But, overall, after the divorce he seemed unhappy.

    The clubby, intense effort of designing the new machine revitalized him. The team consisted of my father; Gopal Shenoy, a material scientist at Argonne who died in 2017; and a dozen others. On a choice table in the Argonne cafeteria, my father posted a sign, ‘Reserved for APS staff’—and replaced it as cafeteria workers repeatedly removed it. In 1985, the Chicago Bears football team stormed to a championship. dad brought in a TV so researchers could keep tabs on the games while working on Sundays.

    It took the team 3 years to complete the conceptual design. Exactly what my father did remains a bit of a mystery to me. As an accelerator physicist, he understood how electrons surf radio waves to gain energy, magnetic fields focus those particles, resonances can obliterate a beam, and synchrotron radiation itself kicks the electrons around. But he had to turn that knowledge into a workable design. His team specified the myriad parameters that defined the APS: the beam energy, the radius of the ring, the number of bunches of electrons in the beam, the arrangements of the magnets, the frequency of the radio waves, etc.

    The first goal was to make the most compact electron beam possible, which would then radiate the brightest x-ray beams, says John Galayda, an accelerator physicist who worked on the APS. The beam also could not move, he says. A tiny electron beam radiates a tiny x-ray beam, which can probe minuscule samples—provided it consistently hits the target. Finally, the machine had to run as reliably as possible.

    Machine designers must strike a delicate balance. The design cannot be so ambitious that the machine can’t be built. But it can’t be so cautious that it merely replicates what already exists. So, a design invariably contains elements that builders do not yet know how to make. ‘Every facility that I’ve been involved with—that’s been lots—was one of a kind, first of a kind,’ the former DOE official says. ‘And that means there are enormous technical problems that haven’t yet been resolved.’

    Apparently, my father was good at identifying what, with effort, could be achieved. ‘He would look at what other projects did and use it and make it better,’ says Marion White, an accelerator physicist at Argonne and my father’s widow. ‘He was incredibly good at that.’

    Of course, a project leader must also manage people. And that’s where my father struggled. His autocratic style worked early on, when the project staff consisted of a self-selected few. It became less effective as the effort became more formal and ballooned to hundreds of people. “He’d hold a meeting and afterwards I’d have people coming into my office and saying, ‘I can’t take it anymore,’ Moncton recalls. So in 1991, as construction ramped up, a physicist named Ed Temple replaced my father as project director.

    My father remained deeply involved in the project, however. He chaired the committee that had to approve any modification to the final design. ‘He’d be pretty rough about that,’ Galayda says. ‘I think he viewed it as an adversarial process.’ As with any machine, some changes, more or less painful, had to be made. Nevertheless, the APS came in on budget at $467 million and ahead of schedule.

    To me, it seemed that my father had his fingers in nearly every aspect of the facility. For example, the APS’s 90,000-square-meter concrete floor has no expansion seams. Contractors had urged including them to keep the floor from cracking, Moncton says, but the design team insisted that the stability of the floor was more important than superficial cracks. I remember my father talking the finer points of concrete floors over lunch.

    2
    The original accelerator in the Advanced Photon Source (above) ran from 1995 until last month. Credit: Argonne National Laboratory.

    The optimist

    Now, workers are dismantling dad’s machine to replace it with a ‘fourth-generation’ design. The new machine will double the current in the ring to 200 milliamps. More important, its electron beam will be even more compact, says Jim Kerby, a mechanical engineer at Argonne and director of the $815 million project. The original APS’s beam measured 10 micrometers high and 275 micrometers wide. The new APS’s beam will measure 3 micrometers high and 15 micrometers wide—less than the width of a human hair.

    That subtle shrinking depends on a key difference between the two machines, Kerby says. In the old APS, the beam always bent inward, to the right. In the new design, it will occasionally bend outward, to the left. These kinks give rise to new dynamics that shrink the beam—an approach pioneered at the MAX IV facility in Sweden and deployed in a rebuild of the ESRF completed in 2020.

    The scheme requires an almost entirely new accelerator. Workers will replace the original APS magnets with 1321 new ones, and change the entire vacuum system. ‘We are swapping out essentially the whole ring,’ Kerby says. The transformation will take just 1 year. ‘It’s always been a deliverable of the project that the downtime would be as short as humanly possible,’ Kerby says. By then my father’s machine will be a memory.

    But my father himself was thinking of new machines even before the APS turned on. In the late 1990s, the DOE’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory began building the Spallation Neutron Source (SNS), which slams a proton beam into a mercury target to generate neutrons for studying materials.

    The project struggled and DOE nearly canceled it, says Thom Mason, director of the DOE’s Los Alamos National Laboratory, who was SNS project director from 2001 to 2008. Moncton, White, my father, and others went to Oak Ridge to help.

    My father led the team that made a key design change, Mason says. The original plan for the SNS called for a conventional linear accelerator made of copper accelerating cavities. The team switched to a novel design with cavities made of a superconducting metal, which promised to be more energy efficient, reliable, and flexible. ‘As a result, we wound up building the first superconducting proton accelerator instead of the last normal one,’ Mason says.

    My father consulted on accelerator projects in South Korea, Germany, Japan, and elsewhere, finding his niche in the odd community of scientific machine builders. He had grown up dirt poor in what is now South Korea, then occupied by Japan. He came to the United States when he was 24 and didn’t return home for 17 years. Whether because of cultural differences, his disability, or his temperament, often he was an outsider.

    Not when he was among his colleagues, however. The happiest I ever saw my father was when he was playing with his grandchildren. A close second was when he was hobnobbing with his colleagues. At least some of them enjoyed his company, too. ‘To me, working with your father was a wonderful experience,’ says Giorgio Margaritondo, a physicist at EPFL, formerly the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Lausanne, who teamed up with him on Aladdin.

    In fact, my father managed to find a community in which he could succeed not in spite of his prickly personality, but, to some degree, because of it. ‘To build an accelerator is a very complex task with many subtasks and a lot of coordination and so on, so you need to run the thing almost the military way,’ Margaritondo says. ‘There is one element that is absolutely necessary for somebody to be a leader which is to be respected. Your father really commanded the respect of the collaborators.’

    Thinking about my father’s work, I also realize how he and I differed in an important respect. I couldn’t cut it as a physicist in part because of my reflexive pessimism. Confronted with some complex scheme, I tend to respond, ‘That will never work.’ In contrast, my father had the confidence to break a barely conceivable technical proposal into parts, identify the obstacles, and devise ways to overcome them. ‘He was the most optimistic person I ever met,’ White says.

    By virtue of that optimism, my father helped create facilities that have enabled thousands of scientists to explore the natural world, to the benefit of us all. That legacy is far less concrete, but far more important than any particular accelerator. So, that’s what I’ll hold on to now.”

    3
    Technicians prepare a section of the new accelerator, which builders plan to complete within 1 year. Credit: Argonne National Laboratory.

    See the full article here .

    Comments are invited and will be appreciated, especially if the reader finds any errors which I can correct. Use “Reply”.


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    Please help promote STEM in your local schools.

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