Workshop on Synchrotron Infrared Spectroscopy for High Pressure Geoscience and Planetary Science

November 3-5, 2005

Location
Brookhaven national Laboratory

Purpose & Scope of Workshop:
In recent years, infrared (IR) microscopy and spectroscopy have greatly benefited from new synchrotron techniques. New infrared synchrotron radiation sources provide a tremendous improvement in flux on a sample, with well-collimated beams from far- to near-IR that give high spatial resolution with unmatched signal to noise. This has opened up new scientific directions in a range of fields including physics, biology, chemistry, materials science, high-technology, and forensics. One of the most exciting areas, however, is high-pressure geoscience and planetary science. High-pressure synchrotron IR spectromicroscopy represents an ideal coupling of the diamond anvil cell and synchrotron IR radiation. In addition, the technique serves as a useful if not unique tool to study minerals quenched from high pressure and temperature and natural samples (including natural high-pressure assemblages) at ambient conditions.

Given the growing user community and future potential for this field, we plan a COMPRES sponsored workshop on "Synchrotron Infrared Spectroscopy for High Pressure Geoscience and Planetary Science." This workshop will bring together synchrotron-IR users to discuss the applications of the high-pressure IR spectroscopy in geoscience and planetary science and to broaden the community further. These techniques include the unique instrumentation at NSLS, such as high-pressure far-IR spectroscopy, coupling with Raman and other optical methods, and in vacuum or low/high temperature experiments, all of which are available for general users. Also new developments in the field, including FELs, coherent sources, will be discussed.

Agenda and Format:
The Workshop will focus on high-pressure synchrotron IR techniques and applications in geoscience and planetary science. Presentations will be scheduled for between 30 and 50 minutes and time will be included for questions and answers. Experienced users will be invited as speakers; these will be primarily from the Earth and planetary science community, but we will also include several outside IR experts who are developing techniques that can be used by COMPRES users in the future. Moreover, a couple of tutorial/introduction talks about FTIR spectroscopy will be arranged in the beginning. Oral presentations will take place on one and half days including a discussion about future development of the IR facility and priorities of user's interests from the COMPRES community. A facility tour and hands-on session will be scheduled in the afternoon of the second day. This will let new/uninformed users learn how to do an IR experiment from beginning to end, including data analysis and show all attendees about special capabilities of synchrotron IR and high P-T applications and what can be done at U2A beamline.