The new PHYS/CHEM 511 Course Advanced X-ray Characterization focuses on hands-on training of the new Xeuss 3.0 X-ray beamline instrument. Co-taught by Prof Liane Moreau in Chemistry and Prof Brian Collins in Physics, the inaugural course is teaching 22 Physics, Chemistry, and Engineering graduate students X-ray science from fundamentals through actual measurement and analyses of nanostructure within thin film coatings to suspended nanoparticles to bulk heterogeneous materials. The course is expected to be taught every two years.

The 5m-long Xeuss 3.0 instrument has four separate X-ray micofocused tube sources that include the latest generation of optics developed by Xenocs: Collimated Cu and Mo sources for small-angle scattering, a focused high-intensity Cu source for wide-angle scattering/diffraction, and a lensless Cu source for imaging of heterogeneous material domains that enables targeting of subsequent X-ray scattering experiments within domains. The instrument also includes the BioCube capillary flow stage with in-line UV-vis spectroscopy for acqueous samples. Other sample stages include capillary and bulk transmission stages with temperature control as well as a temperature-controlled precision grazing incidence stage.

Devin Grabner was nominated and elected to a two-year term as a student member of the Lawerence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL) – Advanced Light Source (ALS) – User Executive Committee (UEC)

The ALS Users’ Executive Committee is established by the ALS Users’ Association Charter. It serves and represents the interests of over 6000 scientists from all over the world, students, post-docs and scientists, who perform research at the ALS. It provides a channel of communication between the ALS user community and ALS management, conveying the concerns and needs of the user community to management, and providing a means for management to update users on current and future plans for the facility. The UEC also facilitates communication between the ALS and other synchrotrons, and between users and federal funding agencies. With the support of the ALS staff, the UEC organizes and runs the annual ALS Users’ Meeting, including award ceremonies, held in October at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL).

We meet monthly for 2 hours, and 3 times a year for a half-day meeting during which we discuss topics relevant to the ALS user community. Members are elected annually by ALS users and serve three-year terms. Further information about the UEC can be found here.

Photo: From Left to Right: Derrick Adams, Catherine Martin, Emma Speight, and Hunter Gedicke

Undergraduates Emma Speight, Catherine Martin, Hunter Gedicke, and Derrick Adams presented their project posters summarizing their Physics thesis work done with the Collins Group at the Fall Undergraduate Physics & Astronomy Poster Symposium. The Symposium included over a dozen posters from seniors preparing to graduate (most in the spring) as a part of their required PHYS 490 course on Science Communication.

Each student led their project in a team that included a graduate student and PI Collins:

• Derrick Adams with Awwad Alotaibi: Measuring Radiative and Non-Radiative Charge Pair Recombination on Organic Photovoltaics
• Emma Speight with Victor Murcia: Dynamics of Ordering of Conductive Polymer Films Printed Under Controlled Airflow
• Catherine Martin with Tamanna Khan: Experimental Design Considerations to Determine the Environmental Effects on Polymer Mixed Ion/Electron Conducting Devices
• Hunter Gedicke with Awwad Alotaibi: Methods and Accuracy for Analysis of OLED’s JV Curves

The PHYS 490 course culminates in a written thesis as well. A prerequisite course, PHYS 489, requires students to complete a project with a research group at WSU. Often the students start this project in the fall and complete it in the summer with supplemental funding provided by a variety of internal funding sources.

Devin Grabner and Dr. Brian Collins both attended and presented at the 2022 Polymer Physics GRC held at Mount Holyoke College in South Hadley, MA. The Polymer Physics GRC is designed to highlight new unpublished developments in core areas of polymer physics, including macromolecular self-assembly, networks and characterization tools. This conference is held every other year with limited attendance, and this year only 200 out of over 300 applicants were accepted to attend and present.

Devin Grabner presented his poster on “Label-Free Anionic Polysoap Characterization & Dynamics via In-Situ Liquid Resonant Soft X-ray Scattering.”

Dr. Brian Collins was an invited speaker, and the title of his talk was “Resonant X-rays for Label-Free Spatiochemical Analyses of Polymer Nanostructures and Devices.”

While in Massachusetts, Dr. Collins and Devin also had the opportunity to visit Xenocs and see their assembly facility, including the SAXS/WAXS instrument currently being built for Washington State University.

Ally Hurd—a physics undergraduate student at Macalester College—has concluded her REU 2022 Summer internship working with Collins group.  Her work focused on quantifying lifetimes of photo-generated charges in printable organic solar cells (OSCs). That included fabrication of OSCs, characterization and optimization of their device performance. Her charge lifetime experiment, known as transient photovoltage (TPV) measurement, involved light sources such as LEDs, a solar simulator, and nanosecond pulsed wavelength-tunable laser. At the end of the internship, Ally presented her work at the 2022 Summer Undergraduate Research Symposium at Washington State University.

Best wishes, Ally!

Graduate student Victor Murcia has successfully defended his Ph.D. dissertation titled “DEVELOPMENT OF TENSOR BASED BUILDING
BLOCK MODELS WITH DENSITY FUNCTIONAL THEORY CALCULATIONS AND CLUSTERING ALGORITHMS FOR A QUANTITATIVE DESCRIPTION OF MOLECULAR ORIENTATION USING NEAR EDGE X-RAY ABSORPTION FINE STRUCTURE SPECTROSCOPY OF SMALL MOLECULES”. For this work, he has been awarded his Ph.D. in Materials Science and Engineering. Congratulations, Victor!

Graduate student Fred Woodall has successfully defended his master’s degree in Physics. His thesis is titled “Characterization and Optimization of Zinc Phthylocyanine Thin Films in Organic Solar Cells”.

Congratulations, Fred!

In collaboration with Ma group, organic solar cell work—led by Awwad Alotaibi and entitled “Electrical edge effect induced photocurrent overestimation in low-light organic photovoltaics”—has been published in Joule.

Read the Paper

Graduate student Awwad Alotaibi has defended his dissertation titled “Accurate measurement of charge generation at interfaces of organic solar cell devices printed from non-halogenated solvents”. For this work he has been awarded his Ph.D. in Materials Science and Engineering. Congratulations Awwad!

In collaboration with Neher group et al., organic solar cell work, entitled “On the Interplay between CT and Singlet Exciton Emission in Organic Solar Cells with Small Driving Force and Its Impact on Voltage Loss”, has been published in Advanced Energy Materials.

Read the paper