UM2017 - Flashback video and photo gallery

Click on the photo above to see all the photos of the meeting (Google Photo Album).

User Meeting 2017 - Aram Bugaev wins Best Poster Prize

Wednesday, 8 February 2017

Aram during the poster clips. © Pierre Jayet.

Aram Bugaev was awarded the prize for best poster at the User Meeting dinner on Tuesday, 7th February. His poster presents the core-shell structure of palladium hybride nanoparticles revealed by combined X-ray diffraction and X-ray absorption spectroscopy. 

Aram Bugaev’s poster presents work carried out during his ongoing PhD studies. “We investigated the structure of very small nano-particles with a combination of the techniques available at BM01  the Swiss Norwegian Beamline. We found that, although the metal is the same, the shell and the core of the particle have a different structure”, he said. The results of this work confirm the theoretical predictions and constitute the first experimental evidence of how core-shell structure can exist even in a nano-particle.

“I’m especially pleased that the title of the work and the poster are the same as the title of the initial proposal submitted for my PhD two years ago. I’ve finally managed to do what was planned!” laughs Aram. Indeed, in the last two years, he has published three independent pieces of work that do not relate to the original proposal. “Science is motion and it can’t be programmed. Sometimes you have to turn around and find another way. That’s what makes it interesting. We were interpreting results  along the way, and we discovered things we’d never expected to find.”

Aram during the poster session (left), and on receiving the award for Best Poster 2017 from Paola Coan of the ESRF User Organisation. © ESRF/C. Argoud

Aram Bugaev, 25, is in the third year of a PhD at the Southern Federal University in Rostov-on-Don in south Russia. He has been a regular user of the ESRF since 2012, working on beamlines SNBL, BM23, BM26, ID20 and ID22. He gave an oral presentation during the 'New possibilities for chemical studies' micro-symposium at the 2015 User Meeting, although it's the first time he has submitted a poster.

Aram is at ease with explaining his work and loves sharing the results and knowledge with others. “I really enjoy getting other people interested in this work and sharing the passion. When you explain things to others, they become clearer in your own mind.” He regularly teaches a science course to Masters’ students back at home. 

Three User-Dedicated Symposia

Day 3 of the ESRF User Meeting focuses on user-dedicated micro-symposia. Each micro-symposium includes keynote talks and the opportunity to meet and discuss with staff. Talks by users are selected on the basis of abstracts submitted in advance. 

Participants of the three User-Dedicated Micro-symposia, held on 8th February. Top left: UDM2 - Quantitative coherent X-ray diffraction imaging. Top right: UDM3 - Operando structural studies in materials science. Bottom: UDM1 - Advances and new science with resonant elastic and inelastic X-ray scattering. © ESRF/C. Argoud

 

Giacomo Ghiringelli, a regular ESRF user from the Politecnico di Milano, Italy, gave a keynote talk at the UDM1 on the new generation RIXS at ID32. “For me it was important today to show how well beamline ID32 is working, with many successful experiments being performed. The beamline is fully performing as expected and designed, and there are many experiments on cuprate super conductors in the pipeline for publication.” Indeed, Ghiringelli should know as he is working on several of the experiments himself, with no less than 3 publications in Nature Physics coming up in the first half of 2017. 

Supplier exhibitions

The ESRF User Meeting also offers a priviledged environment for staff and users to meet with suppliers of synchrotron radiation instrumentation. Twelve companies exhibited their products during the event. 

The User Meeting provides staff and participants with the opportunity to meet and discuss with suppliers of synchrotron radiation instrumentation. ©Pierre Jayet.

 

Day 2 - Plenary Session focuses on ESRF-EBS

Tuesday, 7 February, 2017

Full house for the presentation of the new beamlines for ESRF-EBS. © Pierre Jayet.

The ESRF auditorium was brimming over all day as the core presentations of the User Meeting 2017 assembled participants for a variety of topics. 

The morning opened with a short introduction from Paola Coan, Chairwoman of the ESRF User Organisation. She recalled the especially busy time for the ESRF with the EBS project in full throttle. “The ESRF Users were also particularly active in 2016, with a record number of experiment proposals and also a record number of experiments and users at the ESRF,” she said. “This high activity is also reflected in the high number of posters received for the UM2017.”

Two keynote lectures kicked off the morning session, with Massimo Reconditi, Physiolab, University of Florence, Italy talking about “Micrometer-nanometer scale X-ray diffraction to study the molecular mechanism of heart regulation. The lecture from Magnus Ronning, Department of Chemical Engineering, NTNU, Trondheim, Norway, focussed on the “In situ characterisation of catalysts without compromising process conditions.”

Massimo Reconditi (left) and Magnus Ronning (right) during their keynote lectures on 7th February. © Pierre Jayet.

The Directors’ report gave highlights of the science coming out of the new upgrade beamlines ID20, ID24 and ID30.

The first half of the afternoon was dedicated to the ESRF-EBS, Extremely Brilliant Source project. The eight conceptual design reports (CDR) for the new beamlines were presented by each CDR spokesperson.

The User Organisation announced the winner of the 2017 Young Scientist Award: Amélie Juhin was recognised for her experimental and theoretical studies of resonant X-ray scattering and X-ray dichroism, carried out at the ESRF. Read the full article.

Before winding up the day’s activities with a poster session and cocktail, the ESRF communication group gave a short presentation of the ESRF digital strategy and new website.

Watch the video of Day 2 of the ESRF User Meeting:

 

Tutorials turn heads at 1st day of User Meeting

Monday, 6th February 2017

Users pick up their welcome packs at the registration desk. ©ESRF/C. Navarette.

Registration opened this morning at 8 for Users attending one of the eight tutorials that were proposed during the first day of the 27th annual ESRF User Meeting.

The topics of the tutorials were very varied and included a workshop on scientific communication and social media, XRF analysis with PyMca, volume image analysis of tomographic data, coherent diffraction imaging reconstruction (CDI), nuclear resonance applications, SAXS-WAXS data reduction and analysis using WiSAXS, and EXAFS data analysis with hands-on practicals. Most of the sessions were fully booked with classrooms exuding an atmosphere of serious study.

The eight tutorials invested the many different "classrooms" available on the EPN campus. ©ESRF/C. Navarette.

“It’s my second time at the ESRF User Meeting, and for me it’s an opportunity to meet users from other cities and discuss projects. I’m also here to present some of my work and learn new things, for example, how social media can be used to communicate science.”  Marcin Sikora, an ESRF user and science professor from Poland.

“I’m very interested by the micro-symposia on Wednesday and hope to learn a few things there. It’s my first time at the User Meeting although I’m already a user on the ESRF’s ID13 and BM02 beamlines.” Zongzhe Cheng, a Chinese PhD student working at BESSY in Berlin, Germany.

Practical sessions on EXAFS on beamlines BM25 (left) and BM20 (right). ©ESRF/C. Argoud.

For German Castro, Scientist in charge of the Spanish CRG beamline, SPLINE, the practical sessions on EXAFS on BM25 serve a double purpose. “We’re giving the users more information of the practical side of the experiments, so they can better prepare their proposal, and at the same time we are showing them the full capabilities of this beamline.”

See the video of day 1 below:

 

 

ESRF is ready for Users. Roll on UM2017!

Friday, 3rd January 2017

All ready to welcome Users from 6-8 February. ©ESRF/C. Argoud

February at the ESRF is synonymous with the annual User Meeting, that extra-special time with our users. From 6-8 February 2017, the ESRF will bring together more than 300 synchrotron-savvys for three days of lively discussions, tutorials, keynote lectures, dedicated symposia, poster clips and social entertainment.

The large white marquee mounted in front of the ESRF main building is a tell-tale sign of the imminence of the 2017 ESRF User Meeting. It silently awaits the arrival of the first users when it will transform into a lively hub for the poster session and social events of the meeting. Meanwhile in the User Office, it's full steam ahead for the final preparations. See what's happening in the video below:

 

The User meeting is an excellent opportunity to learn more about the exciting science taking place at the ESRF today but also to learn what kind of science will be made possible with EBS - the Extremely Brilliant Source - which will be in operation from 2020.

The plenary session, which will take place all day on Tuesday, will focus on the Extremely Brilliant Source project (ESRF-EBS). It also includes keynote lectures from:

• Massimo Reconditi, Physiolab, University of Florence, Italy
• Magnus Ronning, Department of Chemical Engineering, NTNU, Trondheim, Norway

On Wednesday, three user-dedicated micro-symposia will be held with the following topics:

• Advances and new science with resonant inelastic X-ray scattering
• Quantitative coherent X-ray diffraction imaging
• Operando structural studies in materials science

The symposia will include talks from users in the related disciplines. In addition, each user-dedicated microsymposium will host keynote talks and the opportunity to meet and discuss with the ESRF staff.

Go to the User Meeting web pages.

Follow the activities of the 2017 ESRF User Meeting on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.

If you are tweeting at the meeting yourself, don’t forget to add the hashtag #UM2017.

Top image: Take a guided tour of the ESRF User Meeting 2017. ©ESRF/C. Argoud