1:30 pm
MCP 215 (Note special time/location)
933 East 56th Street
Analytical Research Tools for Research - the systems that make them whole
Sandra Biedron, University of New Mexico
From the advent of modern analytical devices, including those ranging from the first microscopes to x-ray probes of just over a 100 years ago, to Fermi’s 450-MeV Chicago Cyclotron, humans have been able to see clearly the enormous utility in such probes of matter that have allowed us to make both basic and applied scientific discoveries. We have not tired in trying to develop the most powerful tools, such as today’s coherent, soft to hard x-ray lasers, powerful neutron sources, and high-intensity lasers. The architecture of these tools and their use as user facilities has history in Fermi’s thoughts in which multi-disciplinary involvement is necessary for doing big science. Since 1938, accelerator science, as an example, has influenced almost 1/3 of physicists and physics studies and on average has contributed to Nobel Prize-winning physics research every 2.9 years. We discuss several areas in which we are making contributions to improving analytical tools in the areas of accelerator science and technology, lasers, and many peripherals at the user-facility scale as well as for future smaller scale systems. A new tunable laser architecture (to reach longer wavelengths enhancing light sources and for enabling lab-scale astrophysics and particle sources), the use of data science (for activities such as rapid modeling and control), and a novel short-wavelength compact coherent light source in the soft x-rays to x-rays, will all be discussed as pathways to enhance these present and future analytical tools. Throughout the talk, we will stress the extraordinary importance of not only the science and engineering discovered or applied by these tools, but the science and engineering contributions associated with the tools themselves. This holistic viewpoint of the science of the analytical tool itself and the complementary scientific output of the tool can help us architect new analytical tools for our colleagues in many fields, such as quantum computing, the biological sciences, medical applications, and even anthropology and archeology.
