Pacific Northwest Consortium Collaborative Access Team (PNC-CAT)

PNC-CAT status

The Pacific Northwest Consortium Collaborative Access Team (PNC-CAT) is a consortium of scientists from the University of Washington, Simon Frasier University, and Pacific Northwest National Labs focused on developing new synchrotron x-ray beamlines at the Advanced Photon Source (APS) for studies of both fundamental scientific topics and also material and environmental science issues relevant to the Pacific Northwest. The APS is a new facility located at Argonne National Labs outside of Chicago. It's beamlines are the world's most brilliant source of hard x-rays, and are used in studies by scientists in the physical, biological, environmental, and material sciences from universities, industry, and national laboratories.

Although only in the precomissioning stage for 6 months, the PNC-CAT beamline's potential as a tool for basic and environmental science is already beginning to be realized. Early successes at the PNC-CAT beamline include the following:

• Prof. Fred Brown(UW) has completed a study of defect generation by hard x-rays in insulating materials, and is preparing a paper for submission;
• Asst.Prof. Gerald Seidler(UW) has initiated an x-ray diffraction study of the nucleation of ice from supercooled water. This study is part of his environmental ice physics research in collaboration with Prof. Greg Dash(UW) that has recently been funded by the Bosack and Kruger Charitable Foundation;
• Dr.John Fulton(PNNL) and Dr. Steve Heald(PNNL/APS), have taken preliminary XAFS measurements of high-pressure ionic solutions relevant to the UW/PNNL collaboration which has recently been funded by the DOE (see below);
• Prof. Ed Stern has performed preliminary measurements on a new directionally- sensitive x-ray detector which would have immediate application in the new field of x-ray phase sensitive imaging;
• Prof. Ed Stern with assitance from Dr. Dale Brewe (PNC-CAT/APS) has performed an x-ray microfocus study of seasonal growth variations in the inner nacre of mollusc shells;
• Prof. Darryl Crozier (Simon Fraser Univ.) and Dr. Robert Gordon have succesfully demonstrated x-ray welding of aerospace aluminum and ceramic material;
• Prof. Darryl Crozier has completed an x-ray flouresence characterization of the zinc composition in affluent from paper mills in British Columbia;
• Dr.Dale Brewe (PNC-CAT/APS) has demonstrated scanning x-ray microscopy with compositional sensitivity;
• Dr.Detong Jiang (PNC-CAT/APS) has initiated a collaboration with Digital to study electromigration in lithographically prepared Al-Cu wires, similar to those found in integrated circuits;

• the DOE, following guidelines suggested by a DOE workshop on environmental sciences, provided additional funding to the PNC-CAT to accelerate development of x-ray microfocus and x-ray microscope capabilites;
• a UW/PNNL collaboration (UW: Stern, Seidler, PNNL: Fulton, Heald, Palmer, Darab) was funded in the DOE's Environmental Management Science Program to use the PNC-CAT beamline for fundamental studies of chemical speciation of ionic solutions at high temperatures and pressures relevant to supercritical processing of toxic wastes. This program was highly competitive, with only 66 of 542 applications funded;
• A UW/PNNL collaboration (headed by Prof. T. Engel, Chemistry) has entered the competition for new Environmental and Molecular Science Institutes funded jointly by NSF and DOE. Use of PNC-CAT beamlines is a central component of this proposal;
• A UW multidisciplinary team (headed by Prof. M. Sarikaya, Mat.Sci. & Eng.) is preparing a Materials Research Science and Engineering Center proposal to the NSF focused on using new molecular biology technology to do processing of inorganic materials. Continued progress on x-ray microscope capabilities, especially including development of spatially resolved surface diffraction, will be important for in situ studies of the proposed new film deposition techniques.

With the impending completion of construction of the main experimental hutch the pace of experimental work and instrument development can be expected to increase further, resulting in both new science and new tools for the PNC-CAT members and the beamline users. Several more graduate research assistantships for dissertation projects making use of PNC-CAT beamlines will be available over the next few years.

The PNC-CAT is developing sector 20. Our lab and office space are in the 'lab/office module' at the very end of the presently developed sectors, at the bottom of the aerial picture and just to the left of center.