This award is supported by the Division of Chemistry and the Office of Multidisciplinary Activities in the Directorate for Mathematical and Physical Sciences, the Division of Chemical, Bioengineering Environmental, and Transport Systems in the Directorate for Engineering and the Divisions of Molecular and Cellular Biosciences and Biological Infrastructure in the Directorate for Biological Sciences. The award expands the scientific capabilities and instrumentation at NSF's ChemMatCARS. NSF's ChemMatCARS is a national user facility for frontier research in chemistry, materials science, bioengineering, environmental engineering, and molecular biosciences that employs high-energy synchrotron X-rays at the Advanced Photon Source located at Argonne National Laboratory. Experimental stations at NSF's ChemMatCARS serve a broad national and international community of scientists providing unique capabilities not found anywhere else in the world. Research activities address vital societal issues, including the development of new energy sources, biomolecular materials inspired by biological processes, studies of interactions that help in understanding the rules of life, environmental remediation processes, and new materials and catalysts important for a wide range of industries. This award supports the expansion of NSF's ChemMatCARS sector from one beamline to two, thereby providing opportunities for innovative development of new capabilities and enhanced capacity to meet the scientific needs of a larger user community. The facility serves as a training ground for researchers at all levels of education and carries out numerous activities to develop and diversify the future STEM workforce.
The upgrade of NSF ChemMatCARS enables improved performance and increased user access to new experimental techniques including serial X-ray crystallography, low energy resonant diffraction, the study of liquid-solid interfaces, scanning transmission interfacial scattering, and coherent X-ray surface imaging. The award supports the design and construction of a new beamline as well as two experimental stations that are supplied with X-rays from an independent, second high-energy insertion device (undulator) consisting of superconducting magnets. Beamtime available for experiments at NSF's ChemMatCARS is being doubled, allowing for the development of new techniques and new areas of inquiry. An upcoming upgrade of the Advanced Photon Source will produce an X-ray beam with 100-fold greater brightness and coherent flux enabling new sciences and shorter experiment times. Serial X-ray crystallography of small molecules is being developed to study the structural dynamics of irreversible chemical and physical reactions and processes, that have proven challenging to characterize on the atomic scale. Lower energy X-rays on the new beamline extend the capabilities of resonant diffraction to provide complete coverage of 3d and 4d transition metals, thereby enhancing investigations to replace precious metals with earth-abundant materials for catalysis. In the area of liquid interfaces, new techniques are addressing the challenge of characterizing the heterogeneity of liquid surfaces and interfaces on the nanoscale. The study of liquid-solid interfaces is made possible by new instrumentation capable of addressing a wide range of scientific problems in the areas of water purification, protein-membrane interactions for bio-signaling and transport, and electrolyte-electrode interactions for catalysis and energy applications.
This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.
