The 2004 SR User Meeting was held on Tuesday the 9th and Wednesday 10th of September, at the UK synchrotron radiation facility at the Daresbury Laboratory, Cheshire . Dr. Trevor Rayment, the new Chairman of the SR User Forum, opened the programme to a full lecture theatre; with Prof. Mike Chesters unfortunately absent, he handed over directly to Dr. Tracy Turner to deliver the SR Director's report on his behalf. Accordingly, Tracy appraised the audience of the latest organisational developments at the laboratory. Most importantly, the access arrangements for all three major CLRC facilities had been unified, with dedicated Facility Access Panels established to implement the agreed common procedures. In respect of the new Diamond Light Source, the associated science migration issues were being investigated and the user communities had been canvassed for their opinions concerning operational overlap of Diamond and the SRS.
The programme of plenary lectures then began in earnest, with members of the Daresbury staff delighted to welcome Prof. Gwyn Williams back to the laboratory. Now based at the Jefferson Laboratory, USA , Gwyn is a world expert in the field of Free Electron Lasers and accordingly presented an exciting discourse on the benefits of the tunability and short pulse lengths of these sources. Dr. Alexander Korsunsky, of the University of Oxford , followed on with a lecture on the impressive capabilities of synchrotron radiation crystalline diffraction techniques, applied to stress mapping in metallic engineering components.
After the lunch break, it fell to Dr. Michael Wulff of the ESRF to resume proceedings: he rose to the challenge with a fascinating presentation on time-resolved macromolecular crystallography, focussing upon the dynamics of a particular CO molecule interaction with the Fe 2+ ion in myoglobin. The final plenary of the day was delivered by Dr. Frank de Groot of the University of Utrecht , with a discussion of new capabilities in the field of X-ray absorption and emission spectroscopy. There was then a short tea break prior to Prof. Gerd Materlik's update of progress in the construction of the Diamond Light Source, and discussion of the associated Diamond Research Complex proposal.
Naturally, with the issues of Diamond and 4GLS very much on everyone's minds, the afternoon breakout sessions were guaranteed to be lively, and this was reflected in the subsequent reports of the user group chairs. The dominant issue was one of overlap between the three facilities, with differing perspectives amongst the user groups according to beamline provision at Diamond. The surface science, and atomic and molecular communities in particular evinced great concern for the long-term prospects of their survival. Amongst all parties, however, there was unanimous agreement that the SR community should push for the greatest possible overlap between Diamond start-up and closure of the SRS. The first day ended, as is customary, with a commercial exhibition and poster session, and a buffet dinner where the discussions continued into the evening.
The plenary lectures resumed on the second day of the meeting, with Prof. Jim Naismith of the University of St. Andrews presenting on his studies of fluorine chemistry in biological molecules. Prof. Rob Jones followed on, with his lecture on the applications of X-ray Standing Wave, and Normal Incidence X-ray Standing Wave techniques to the analysis of complex surface structures. The plenary lectures were brought to a close by Dr. Adrian Finch, again from the University of St. Andrews , with a discourse on fluorescence studies of environmental carbonates and the corresponding insights into climate change.
Finally it was the turn of Prof. Elaine Seddon and Prof. Wendy Flavell to present an update of progress on the 4GLS (fourth generation light source) project. The 4GLS business case had passed its October 2002 Gateway 1 Review with flying colours, and the short-term future of the project has been assured through the April 2003 Department of Trade and Industry announcement of a three-year finance package worth £11.5 million. During this period, a prototype test facility will be established within the pre-existing infrastructure of the NSF tower at Daresbury. The 4GLS project now needs to decide upon the flagship science that it is ultimately intended to pursue, and science champions and research teams are required in order to propose experiments that will only be possible using unique features of this light source.
The user meeting was then brought to a close with the presentations of the three poster prizes to respectively Mr. A.K. Chakraborty of the Physics Dept., Durham University, Dr. Nigel Poolton of the CLRC and Dr. Mike Hough, again of the CLRC. Whilst this may have been the cue for some delegates to return home, many more stayed on to attend one of the three satellite sessions: workshop on ferromagnetic semiconductors and synchrotron radiation, workshop on structural studies using softer x-rays, and workshop on VUV gas-phase photochemistry and photophysics.
Looking ahead to next year, the 2004 SR User Meeting will be held at the site of the UK's new 3 rd generation Diamond Light Source at the Rutherford Appleton Laboratory in Oxfordshire, where the meeting is anticipated to build upon the successful plenary/satellite structure of this year with an even broader range of satellite meetings so as to encompass the full range of SR activities.
