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SLAC Going to Hosting the Sixth Stanford-Berkeley Summer School on Synchrotron Radiation and Its Applications in Physical Science

Approximately 40 graduate students from around the country, and some from around the globe, will be at SLAC August 17–22 to attend a week of lectures, discussions and tours with synchrotron radiation scientists. SLAC is hosting the sixth Stanford-Berkeley Summer School on Synchrotron Radiation and Its Applications in Physical Science.

To attend the school, graduate students and postdoctoral researchers in physics, chemistry and materials science must submit applications explaining how knowledge of synchrotron radiation will enhance their research. One of the school's co-chairs, Anders Nilsson says, "We have discussions and give guidance to see how we can help them utilize synchrotron radiation. In addition, we have students come in who are focused on a very narrow part of synchrotron radiation and we want them to see the breadth of this field."

SLAC/Stanford University and the University of California Berkeley swap hosting duties each year. This is the third year SLAC has housed the school. The majority of the program will take place in the Research Office Building's (building 48) Redwood Room. Visiting students will stay at the Stanford Guest House.

The program includes trips to both the Stanford Synchrotron Radiation Laboratory (SSRL) and the Advanced Light Source in Berkeley. Students will have opportunities to interact with the professional staff and graduate students at both facilities.

"We wanted to do something jointly between the two universities. We had such a great pool of potential lecturers," says Nilsson. He and co-chairperson David Attwood of UC Berkeley began the school in 2001. Speakers include scientists from SSRL, Stanford University, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and UC Berkeley. Over the years, the curriculum has undergone small changes, but the core group of lecturers has remained the same.

The summer school is sponsored jointly by Stanford University, the Environmental Molecular Science Institute at Stanford, the Engineering Research Center for Extreme Ultraviolet Science and Technology at Berkeley, and the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory.

About Stanford Synchrotron Radiation Laboratory
The Stanford Synchrotron Radiation Laboratory, a division of Stanford Linear Accelerator Center, is operated by Stanford University for the Department of Energy. SSRL is a National User Facility which provides synchrotron radiation, a name given to x-rays or light produced by electrons circulating in a storage ring (SPEAR) at nearly the speed of light. These extremely bright x-rays can be used to investigate various forms of matter ranging from objects of atomic and molecular size to man-made materials with unusual properties. The obtained information and knowledge is of great value to society, with impact in areas such as the environment, future technologies, health, and education.

The SSRL provides experimental facilities to some 2,000 academic and industrial scientists working in such varied fields as drug design, environmental cleanup, electronics, and x-ray imaging.

In figure, Students and educators at the 2005 Stanford Berkeley Summer School on Synchrotron Radiation.