Soft and Biomolecular Materials

February 11-12, 2008

Purpose & Scope:
A workshop on "Soft and Biomolecular Materials Strategic Planning for the NSLS and NSLS-II Synchrotrons" will be held at Brookhaven National Laboratory on February 11-12. The purpose of this workshop is to define what scientific challenges in soft and biomolecular materials can be addressed using the source properties of the NSLS and NSLS-II synchrotrons, what synchrotron resources are required to pursue them, and how the upgrade and transition of the NSLS synchrotron resources and build-out of the NSLS-II synchrotron resources can be coordinated to facilitate new scientific programs and optimize continuity of on-going programs.

The soft and biomolecular materials community began planning for NSLS-II at the "Workshop on Scientific Opportunities in Soft Matter and Biophysics at NSLS-II" held at Stony Brook University in September 2003. At this workshop, the scientific challenges that required a synchrotron facility were identified and incorporated into the CD0 'mission need' proposal for NSLS-II. The workshop also produced a Report in which the community recommended a suite of beamlines that would be required to address the scientific challenges.

The NSLS-II Source is now at an advanced stage of design, and beamline advisory teams will soon be formed to specify the NSLS-II beamlines. This is the time to turn bold ideas about high-performance beamlines and optimized endstation facilities into concrete plans! Based on earlier workshop recommendations and recent advances, the workshop organizers and advisors will develop a straw-plan for a primary suite of beamlines for the soft and biomolecular materials community. This suite will include new NSLS-II insertion device beamlines as well as bend-magnet beamlines upgraded and transitioned from the NSLS. For the community to be competitive in having this suite of beamlines selected for inclusion in the NSLS-II facility, we require your critical input on the priority beamlines and their specifications, ideas for ways to enhance their performance, ideas for research and development projects that will provide unique capabilities for the beamlines, high-impact science problems where understanding structure and function is crucial, and ideas for new synchrotron techniques or novel beamline concepts.

If you can contribute in any of these ways, we encourage your participation in the workshop and ask that you submit an optional 1-page abstract to the workshop lead organizer describing the nature of your ideas. The focus of the workshop will be discussing the ideas of the community and formulating them into preliminary plans for the suite of beamlines. We anticipate that the nucleus of the beamline advisory teams for the soft and biomolecular materials beamlines will form at this workshop and beamline concepts will be outlined. The workshop will consist of general presentations and community discussions as well as break-out sessions for beamlines focused on particular techniques. A tentative list of break-out sessions includes:

1. SAXS/WAXS Beamlines
2. GISAXS/Surface and Interface Scattering Beamlines
3. Micro-SAXS and Nano-SAXS Beamlines
4. Soft X-Ray Spectroscopy and Scattering Beamlines

Strategic Planning Information

• Liquid Interface Scattering: Summary from the July 2007 Workshop

Registration Deadline: Thursday, February 7, 2008