May 1, 2007

COMPRES Beamlines Receive 5-Year Funding Renewal

Funding for the Consortium for Materials Properties Research in Earth Sciences (COMPRES) – an organization that facilitates the operation of high-pressure beamlines for earth science research, including four beamlines at the NSLS – has been renewed through the National Science Foundation. The five-year, $11.5 million cooperative agreement takes effect on May 1, 2007. That total includes more than $4 million for the operation of NSLS beamlines X17B2, X17B3, X17C, and U2A.

Participants in the COMPRES-sponsored workshop on synchrotron infrared spectroscopy for high-pressure geoscience and planetary science held at the NSLS in November 2005 and convened by the operators of beamline U2A from the Carnegie Institution of Washington.

“This renewal confirms the importance of the NSLS UV and X17 beamlines to the high-pressure earth science community,” said COMPRES President and Stony Brook University Professor Robert Liebermann. “It’s a significant part of our portfolio.”

Research on the structure of perovskite at NSLS beamline X17C led to the cover article in the February 28, 2005 edition of Geophysical Research Letters.

Formed in 2001, COMPRES encompasses 50 U.S. member institutions as well as 28 foreign affiliate members. The consortium holds four Contributing User Agreements with the NSLS to operate high-pressure facilities at the superconducting wiggler x-ray beamlines (X17B2, X17B3, and X17C) and the infrared beamline (U2A), along with teams from the Carnegie Institution of Washington, Stony Brook University, the University of Chicago, and Princeton University. The renewed funding, which is given by NSF’s Instrumentation & Facilities Program in the Division of Earth Sciences, will cover operation costs, equipment, on-site housing for users, and travel costs for students and staff at the NSLS beamlines.

In addition to its involvement at the NSLS, the consortium also operates high-pressure beamlines at the Advanced Light Source, and provides oversight for high-pressure beamlines at the Advanced Photon Source and neutron facilities including the Spallation Neutron Source and the Los Alamos Neutron Science Center.

The process to renew the organization’s current five-year funding agreement, which expired in April 2007, began last August. In November 2006, COMPRES hosted a site visit at Brookhaven for the NSF panel, which Liebermann pinpointed as a key step in securing funding.

During the past five years, the COMPRES-run NSLS beamlines have produced a variety of intriguing science. Examples include: an ongoing series of studies on two minerals – hydrous ringwoodite and silicate perovskite – that are providing accurate determinations of water solubility in the Earth’s lower mantle; a high-pressure test of an analog for perovskite (the dominant mineral in the lower mantle) that reveals octahedral tilting evolution in its structure – a discovery that could help scientists estimate the physical properties of materials that make up the planet; and a new, accurate method for measuring the energy loss in elastic waves at seismic frequencies. This latter breakthrough uses the high flux of synchrotron x-rays to image a sample that is inside a pressure vessel and isolate each mineral to measure its properties under mantle conditions.

“We’re grateful that we have the opportunity to exploit the opportunities at the NSLS as well as the chance to be on the ground floor of planning for the future at NSLS-II,” Liebermann said.

ARTICLE BY: Kendra Snyder