Dedicated to static and dynamic condensed matter chemistry and materials science. Learn More About ChemMatCARS
ChemMatCARS
Condensed matter for the study of: polymers, colloids, composite materials, fiber (structure and processing), and crystallization kinetics. Learn More About USAXS At ChemMatCARS
Small and Wide-angle X-ray Scattering
Used to investigate dynamical and structural properties of surfaces and interfaces in a variety of liquid and solid systems. Learn More About Liquid Surface At ChemMatCARS
Liquid Surface/Interface X-ray Scattering
Uses a "rapid setup" crystallography facility that allows us to rapidly switch operation to the single-crystal instrument. Learn More About Crystallography At ChemMatCARS
Advanced Crystallography
Overview
ChemMatCARS operates three experimental stations in the areas of advanced small-molecule crystallography, liquid surface and interface scattering, and ultra-small to wide-angle scattering at the Advanced Photon Source (APS), the premier undulator-based synchrotron source of high-brilliance high-energy x-rays in the U.S.A. The instrumentation at ChemMatCARS provides information that addresses a broad range of issues in chemistry and materials research.
Scientific Focus
The scientific focus of user activities at ChemMatCARS is the study of structure and dynamics over the range of length scales from atomic and molecular to mesoscopic. The experimental techniques available to the scientific community span a spatial resolution of sub-angstrom to micrometer and a time resolution from 50 ns to minutes. These include:
High Precision Crystallography to study charge (i.e., electron) densities, bonding, microcrystals, resonant diffraction, high-pressure (up to 10 GPa) single crystal diffraction, and transient state/photo-crystallography.
Scattering From Liquid Surfaces and Liquid-Liquid Interfaces to measure atomic, molecular, and mesoscopic ordering at interfaces using resonant and non-resonant reflectivity, grazing-incidence diffraction and small angle scattering, surface fluorescence, surface diffuse scattering, and fast techniques, such as grazing incidence diffraction in the 1D pinhole geometry.
Ultra-Small-Angle X-ray Scattering (USAXS) and small and wide-angle x-ray scattering (SAXS/WAXS) to probe ordering in bulk materials on angstrom to micrometer length scales.
CHEMMATCARS IS SUPPORTED BY THE DIvISIONS OF CHEMISTRY AND MATERIALS RESEARCH,
NATIONAL SCIENCE FOUNDATION
UNDER GRANT NUMBER NSF/CHE-1346572.
Phil Coppens’ structure one of world’s top 10
An x-ray crystal structure solved by Philip Coppens, a founding member of ChemMatCARS, has been chosen by Chemical&Engineering News as one of the world’s top 10 crystal structures ever solved. The structure, of sodium nitroprusside was studied in the framework of pioneering research on excited state crystalline structures. Large part of the relevant experimental work was performed at the University of Chicago’s ChemMatCARS beamline and, more recently, the BioCARS beamline, at the APS.
