I14 Control room:
Tel: +44 (0) 1235 778570
Principal Beamline Scientist:
Majid Kazemian
Email: [email protected]
Tel: +44 (0) 1235 778222
Email: [email protected]
Tel: +44 (0)1235 778924
A number of I14 staff presented their work at the recent Royal Microscopical Society conference ‘Frontiers in Physical Imaging’ in London.
PhD student Reham Gonnah presented a poster on her work on enamel remineralization, I14 Beamline Scientist Jessica Walker gave a talk on in situ research at I14, and Imaging Group Leader Julia Parker gave an overview of imaging techniques in in situ imaging. There was lots of discussion throughout the conference, particularly covering beam damage effects and mitigation. Thank you to the organisers for hosting the meeting!
I14 have been joined by our new Principal Beamline Scientist, Majid Kazemian.
Majid comes to I14 from his previous role at Diamond’s Beamline I08, and he will lead the team at I14 following Julia’s move to Imaging Group Leader.
We welcome him to I14!
I14 staff, alumni and support team members celebrated a successful year with Christmas lunch out at a local venue. Thank you to all our users, the support groups and collaborators at Diamond for all your hard work in 2024! We look forward to continuing our work in 2025, with exciting projects such as the joint I14/I18 PyMCA and Mantis workshop planned for next year.
Fundamentals-of-PyMCa-and-MANTiS-for-XRF-and-XANES-data-interpretation-workshop-2025
Users from across the Imaging and Microscopy Group beamlines were hosted for a two day meeting at Diamond recently. Recent updates about I14 were shared by Miguel Gomez-Gonzalez, and research presentations from users of I14 featured throughout the schedule, including I14 PhD student Reham Gonnah, regular user Cullen Chosy and I14 beamline scientist Jessica Walker.
It was great to meet lots of researchers who use imaging and microscopy tools in their work, and discuss with them how I14 might apply to their research questions, as well as share best practice across beamlines.
The meeting also featured plenty of networking opportunities, with a poster session, the presence of industry sponsors and a conference dinner at Corpus Christi college in Oxford.
Thank you to all the participants and we hope to see you at I14 soon!
Learn more about the imaging and microscopy group:
https://www.diamond.ac.uk/Instruments/Imaging-and-Microscopy.html
In August, I14 beamline scientist Jessica Walker presented updates from the beamline at the recent SRI conference in Hamburg, Germany. The conference schedule included a visit to DESY and the European XFEL facilities.
It was great to meet scientists from synchrotron facilities across the world and learn about the many developments taking place in instrumentation and science. The conference was attended by around 1000 scientists, with a strong representation from Diamond as a whole. There was time to take in the sights of Hamburg during the conference dinner which took place on the River Elbe!
More info: https://www.sri2024.eu/
The I14 team were delighted to have two work experience students for a week as part of Diamond’s annual work experience programme. The programme is open to school students from across the country with an interest in STEM. This year we looked at corrosion using the beamline and the laboratory facilities at I14, preparing samples and imaging using optical microscopes and X-ray fluorescence. We hope both our students had a great time and it was a pleasure to have them!
In the image you can see an example of a piece of copper foil that has been corroded by solutions designed by the students. This was imaged on our light microscope, before being taken to the beamline. We also looked at iron corrosion using the same methods. Find out more: https://www.diamond.ac.uk/Public/For-School/Schools-Work-Experience.html
Coinciding with a beam shutdown period at Diamond Light Source, Miguel Gomez Gonzalez was invited to a seminar series by the Austrian Mineralogical Society. This consisted of providing a scientific lecture, with a focus in mineralogy, in four different cities in Austria during four consecutive days: Vienna, Graz, Leoben, and Innsbruck.
In his talk: “From bulk to nano spectroscopy: Unveiling the chemical speciation of metal and metalloids in soils, colloids, and freshwater systems”, Miguel described how to use X-ray absorption spectroscopy and other separation techniques (i.e., AF4-ICPMS, SP-ICPMS), in order to bridge the difficult gap between soil contamination and the mobilisation of hazardous elements as colloidal micro- and nanoparticles.
Special thanks to Dr. Tamara Djordjevic for organising the seminar series and for hosting Miguel in Vienna, as well as to the organisers in the other cities. This was a fantastic forum to understand more about mineralogy, petrology, and chemical processes in Austria, exchanging ideas for future experiments at I14 beamline.
Images on the right are: Miguel Gomez Gonzalez during his visit to the Faculty of Earth Sciences, Geography, and Astronomy in Vienna (up) and to the Peter-Tunner-Gebäude Institute at Leoben University (down).
Developing scientific collaborations is key for the I14 team. Miguel Gomez Gonzalez was invited to participate as co-investigator of the ongoing project "Retention of emerging pollutants (Thallium) by secondary minerals in areas impacted by mining activities" led by Javier Agular Carillo (Universidad Autonoma de San Luis Potosi), funded by the Mexican research body: CONACYT.
Javier and Miguel were granted beamtime at Carnauba (LNLS, Brazil) in their competitive call. At the coherent X-ray nanoprobe beamline of the LNLS, they unveiled Thallium (TI) speciation in contaminated areas after mining activities in Central Mexico, by applying nano X-ray fluorescence and X-ray absorption spectroscopy.
In addition, Miguel was invited to give a scientific talk on 'nanomaterial speciation changes in environmental solutions and how co-existing microplastics can act as transportation vectors', as part of the "Seminars IQ-Unicamp" series at Universidad de Campinas (Brazil). Special thanks to Prof. Pablo Fernandez for hosting Miguel, and for the insightful scientific discussions held, exploring potential applications for beamtime at I14 in future calls.
Diamond Light Source is the UK's national synchrotron science facility, located at the Harwell Science and Innovation Campus in Oxfordshire.
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