Brookhaven Lecture

<p>BNL's planned National Synchrotron Light Source II (NSLS-II) is designed to be a world-leading light source facility, promising advances in nanoscience, energy, biology, and materials research. In designing and developing this new facility, breakthrough research is a must to ensure that appropriate tools are available for the new science that will be studied.</p> <p>At BNL, a team of researchers has overcome a major x-ray focusing obstacle to allow the study of molecules, atoms, and advanced materials at the nanoscale, which is on the order of billionths of a meter. Their innovative method uses a type of refractive lens called a kinoform lens —similar to the kind found in lighthouses — in order to focus the x-rays down to the extremely small spots needed for a sharp image at small dimensions.</p> <p>To learn about this research, join NSLS Physicist Kenneth Evans-Lutterodt in Berkner Hall, at 4 p.m. on Wednesday, October 24, as he gives the 428th Brookhaven Lecture entitled "Lighthouses, Light Sources and Kinoform Hard X-Ray Optics."</p> <p>The goal for Evans-Lutterodt and his colleagues is to enable the probing of materials and molecules with just one-nanometer resolution, which is a capability needed to study the intricate mechanisms of chemical and biological systems. However, to do that, they need to exceed a limit known as the critical angle on the ability to focus high-energy, or hard, x-rays. Evans-Lutterodt will explain how this limit was exceeded at the NSLS and how the breakthrough could benefit future science at NSLS-II.</p> <p>Evans-Lutterodt received his Ph.D. in physics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. After working at Bell Laboratories, he joined BNL in 2003.</p>