Symposia lists

 

I. Earth sciences

This symposium will focus on the use of XAS techniques for old glasses or archaeological finds which are often heterogeneous and complex in shape and composition. XAS techniques offer a combination of features particularly well-suited for the chemical analysis of rare, ancient materials and works of art. The methods are noninvasive, have low detection limits, afford high lateral resolution, and provide exceptional chemical sensitivity.The samples could be pottery, glass, metals, paper, pigments, wood, cloths, etc.. Ancient materials, covered by alteration layers can be determined by using micro-beams XAS technique. This symposium will showcase XAS spectra can provide answers for the main questions that archaeologists ask most often regarding chemical composition, dating and provenance of archaeological finds.

II. Environmental and biological sciences

The environmental and biological X-ray absorption spectroscopy symposium will showcase XAS approaches in characterizing biomaterials and also biological-related materials. The XAS technique has emerged as a tool to solve a variety of scientific questions in biological, agricultural, and environmental science.  The illustration of molecular form of a metal within a complex specimen that is obtained from XAS can lead to a comprehensive understanding of the assembly processes from the building blocks to the hierarchical structures, then to supramolecular structures across various length scales. This symposium will focus on the applications and advantages of XAS that are particularly useful for biological materials research including natural rubber materials and products.

III. Energy materials

This symposium aims to discuss the challenges in the characterization of energy materials, including photovoltaics, batteries, supercapacitors, fuel cells, hydrogen technologies, thermoelectrics, photocatalysis, solar power technologies, magnetic refrigeration, and piezoelectric materials. In order to obtain their chemical, physical and structural properties. Several techniques, based on electron and X-ray techniques must be utilized. Synchrotron XAS technique will be outlined in this symposium due to its high characterization performances in oxidation state and local structure for a probing atom. The resulting data can lead to explain material features and properties. Further, In-situ XAS measurement allows to follow the change in oxidation state and local structure under different conditions.

IV. Catalysts

This symposium aims to discuss about existing and emerging approaches to determine the catalyst active phase and catalytic mechanism by using synchrotron-based spectroscopy methods. Precisely, the utilization of in situ, time-resolved synchrotron techniques can offer unique opportunities to study working catalysts under various temperatures and atmospheres, for instance operating conditions in excess of 500 ^oC in various oxidizing or reducing gases. XAS measurements are ideal to study such processes, as changes in the short-range structure around specific atomic species are of the most importance. Moreover, this symposium will demonstarte several representative examples from recent literature and how to identify new catalyst phases and reaction intermediates by means of XAS measurements. 

V. Electrical, magnetic, and optical materials

The focus of this symposium is on insights into structural information of dielectric and magnetic materials obtained using XAS. XAS could be used along with other synchrotron based structural probes such as XPS, SAXS/WAXS or XRD to gain structural information of these materials, which is closely related to their dielectric or magnetic properties. Local structures, oxidation states and coordination environments of interested elements could be determined from XAS. Together with XPS, SAXS/WAXS or XRD to provide additional information such as electronic stages, long range order and morphology, a more complete structural pictures of the materials could be established. Moreover, in-situ measurements such as temperature dependent experiments are achievable. These insights into structural information could lead to advancements in technological important applications such as novel materials for capacitors, sensors, actuators, information storage, spintronics or drug delivery.

VI. Graphene, DLC, and Carbon-based materials

The objective of this symposium is to discuss the recent progress in studying of the electronic and physical properties of carbon-based materials. Surfaces, interfaces and thin films can be thoroughtly investigated by using Synchrotron techniques, for example Photoelectron Emission Spectroscopy, Photoelectron Emission Microscopy and Angle-Resolved Photoelectron Emission Spectroscopy. The obtained fundamental knowledge is essential to design and conduct effective surface/interface of carbon-based materials. This lead to improve material qualities and performances for a specific application. This symposium will accommodate sessions on the analysis of surfaces, interfaces and thin-films, characterization and control of vacuum-based material growth and processing, and their applications to materials used in electronics, spintronics, optoelectronics and catalysis.

VII. Relevant and combined techniques

The goal of this symposium is to discuss combined techniques provided by Synchrotron light source such as XRD/XAS, XAS/IR and XAS/SAXS. Benicifially, this can be interesting for multicomponent and complex materials, including  ion conducting oxides. The combined use of XRD and XAS allows the investigation of complete working systems.