First users on Brockhouse!

#OntheBeamlines: Stefan Kycia, Associate Professor in Physics at the University of Guelph, is the first outside user on our Brockhouse beamline. He also led the development of the #BXDS [1] project as Principal Investigator and beamteam leader.

“We are actually, for the first time, working on scientific samples at the Brockhouse Sector,” Kycia said, explaining that their samples are not only good models to develop and fine-tune the instruments, but are also technologically important.

One of the key elements on this beamline is a high-resolution pair distribution function method. Kycia calls this a non-traditional X-ray technique, which allows researchers to look at modern materials and nanomaterials. One of the samples is a polymer tubing—used as a substitute for copper tubing. The work is part of Kycia’s collaboration with PexCor Inc., an Alberta company and Prof. John Dutcher with Physics, University of Guelph.

“We have new ways of measuring the tubing to try to extract information that is relevant to PexCor, information that nobody has. So, we are inventing a new, tailor-made measurement for the purposes of this Canadian industry,” Kycia said.

The other sample is amorphous selenium, a material that can be used in photosensitive detectors. The team is following up on work done in 2001 by a colleague of Kycia’s, Ralf Brüning, with Mount Allison University [2].

“It’s a really nice choice for a first sample because we know so much about it, but we hope to know yet even more. Ralf could allude to subtleties in the structure happening during heat treatment, but he didn’t have the resolution back then to be able to really prove it. Together we have set out to finally resolve the structure changes in annealed amorphous selenium. We couldn’t do that until this beamline was built,” he added.

Originally posted to Facebook [3] by Canadian Light Source [4]