February 2004 Newsletter

Contents

Download a PRINTER FRIENDLY 246Kb PDF version of the paper edition.

1. Editorial
2. 2003 Durham Conference Report
3. Denver Conference 2003 Report
4. 2003 Quantitative Analysis RR Results
5. Forum II Meeting Reports
6. BCA SPRING MEETING 6th - 8th April 2004, Programme
7. BCA SPRING MEETING POSTERS 6th April 2004
8. Industrial Group AGM UMIST, Manchester 12 noon 7^th April 2004.
9. Newsletter mailing list
10. Committee Members and Addresses (2003-4)

Forthcoming Events

BCA SPRING MEETING, MANCHESTER. 6th - 8th April 2004

INTRODUCTION TO POWDER DIFFRACTION
UMIST, Manchester, 10th June 2004

Pharmaceutical Special Interest Group
24th June 2004,(venue to be decided)

INDUSTRIAL GROUP AUTUMN MEETING 'DIY Crystallography'
Birkbeck College, London 4th November, 2004

Editorial

Welcome to this latest issue of the IG newsletter. There are lots of meeting reports in this issue. I hope you'll find something useful from them. The recent Forum II meeting was a great success. Those of you unable to get to Birkbeck missed two days of excellent presentations backed up by local organization. Thanks must go to Jeremy Cockcroft and Dave Taylor. As you can see, there are more meetings coming up. This year's Spring Meeting in Manchester is again of a similar format to last years. The industrial group is responsible for some aspects of the programme. Please have a look at the details in this newsletter and try to come along. As with last year, one-day registrations are available. We are also planning two meetings in June, the first is designed to help newcomers to x-ray diffraction and the second is another in the series of Pharmaceutical SIG's which have been a great success. Finally, we have our usual Autumn meeting which this year is on DIY Crystallography. As always at this time I ask for volunteers to join the committee. This year we are again looking for new recruits. Please do think seriously about offering your services. It doesn't take up much time and is something useful to put on your CV!. Finally, a big thank you to all those who have written articles for this newsletter. Hope to see as many of you as possible during this year.

Why not put pen to paper and write a short article for our next Newsletter. There are lots of examples to give you some ideas in our Hints & Tips section on the WEB. Don't forget, if you attend a conference, please send in an article about it.

We are also looking to expand the range of Industrial Applications of XRD on our WEB Site.

All we need are a few well chosen pictures and a few words. How about something on CEMENTS, MINERALS, MUSEUMS, PHOTOGRAPHY, DETERGENTS, PIGMENTS, POLYMERS

Philip Holdway
Editor

Newsletter Mailing list.

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2003 Denver Conference Report

This was to be my first Denver conference and I had been looking forward to it for some time. My initial concerns over BA flight delays were not realised as I just missed the chaos at Heathrow caused by the August industrial action. My flight was naturally late and overbooked which resulted in an agreeable upgrade to club class. This provided a lot more leg room and a free refreshment/moisturiser pack good enough to use as a 'gift from the US' for my wife! I had sent a 'graduate' student on ahead to ensure her presence at Monday evenings poster presentation. I arrived just in time to mingle at this first poster session but the free drinks (provided at all poster sessions) and time difference ensured my early retirement. Unfortunately this also ensured my 4.00am awakening on Tuesday.

The conference was held at a large conference centre (the 'Denver Tech Centre') that provided the convenience of hotel and conference facilities at same location. However, it was not within walking distance of anywhere, with downtown Denver some miles away.

The principal conference theme focused upon XRD and XRF of art and archaeological objects. Typical parallel conference sessions from Wednesday to Friday were supported by workshops on the previous 2 days. These included discussions of X-ray optics, Rietveld applications, specimen preparation, alignment, and 2-D diffraction.

I took some time on Tuesday morning to talk to several of the commercial exhibitors, (the commercial exhibition was extensive) which included finally meeting the U.S. part of the Bruker operation.

The workshops of particular interest to me concerned intensity distribution measurements using an area detector. Presentations were delivered from both Bruker and Rigaku representatives and there was some debate (not surprising) that centered upon the advantages and disadvantages of wire vs. image plates and curved vs. flat field detectors. Speeds of data collection were also discussed. I had hoped that these, and the other workshops I attended, would have perhaps involved more audience participation and interaction.

The Plenary sessions on Wednesday morning focussed upon the analysis of art and archaeological objects. The four principal speakers, who all gave fascinating and enlightening talks, were from Belgium, Austria, Canada & the U.K. Initially each explained why the analysis of such objects is important for culturo-historical, conservation/restoration, and assessment of authenticity. State-of-the-art XRD and XRF were employed to examine objects as diverse as Frescoes from Jordan, enamels, stone axes, corrosion products and even Napoleon Bonapartes' signature. We were shown how micro-XRD had successfully even been used to map layers through the cross-sections of small paint flakes. The Wednesday afternoon parallel sessions addressed instrumentation, Rietveld applications, high-resolution diffraction and synchrotron applications. I attended the "new instrumentation" session, which consisted of presentations by technical staff from Industries, rather than their sales representatives. These included descriptions of quality assurance processes for miniature X-ray tubes (up to 10W from a 3-4cm tube!), new multilayer optics which, when placed in incident and diffracted beams (twin mirrors) are capable of depth profiling, and a new motorised knife edge system for combinatorial screening.

Later on Wednesday afternoon, I took advantage of being in Denver to meet with an old friend and industrial collaborator (another disillusioned U.K. academic who had recently left for the 'greener pastures' of Denver). This also allowed us to tour the bars of downtown Denver. We enjoyed the sunshine, free buses, excellent customer service and the architecture of the railway station. We did not enjoy the major roadworks that seem ubiquitous in Denver. Nicknamed, "T-Rex", these are apparently due to take 5-6 years to complete!

Thursday consisted of more of parallel sessions. Before lunch these included detectors & sources, synchrotron applications, stress analysis and TXRF, and after lunch, optics, stress analysis, industrial applications and quantitative XRF. Thursday was also the day I was due to deliver 2 talks and take a night flight back to the U.K. I chose to attend the synchrotron session in the morning. This was a diverse set of talks included stress-crack analysis studies of magnetic nanostructures, phases of Ni-Si and texture studies using high energy X-rays. For me, a most intriguing presentation was provided by Professor Stuart Stock (Northwestern University) who showed, using phase radiography, how a newt would regenerate limbs, which surprisingly is not from the top downwards. Unfortunately, my talk in this session seemed to be better than the fire alarm at clearing the lecture room of an audience… surprising as it was the only talk of the conference to show the inside of a working gentleman's "washroom" !

On Thursday afternoon I attended the "industrial applications" session. Presentations included examples of industrial problems investigated by Herbert Goebel (e.g. inclusions within uPVC window frames, glancing angle applications), a description of new funding sources for hydrogen storage systems (e.g. clathrates) and a review of the research facilities at GE. This was delivered by Yan Gao who said, in comparing industry with academia, that "industry sought solutions whereas academia sought problems". Other lectures included descriptions of a novel simultaneous n-IR/XRD system, and an innovative diffractometer designed for very rapid determination of texture in coated tapes (1 pole figure per minute).

I left Denver on Thursday evening feeling tired (it had been a long and very full programme) but convinced that the trip had been worthwhile. Overall the conference was very well organised and had provided an interesting and diverse range of lectures. All of the talks were of high quality. Lasting memories will include the spectacular pancake breakfasts (spectacular in terms of quantity and cost), and the thorough search of my shoes at the airport. I look forward to attending another Denver conference in future when I have saved up enough money.

Keith Rogers