The NSRRC Annual Users' Meeting and Workshops is a unique set of events that bring together synchrotron radiation (SR) users in a single scientific forum. Participants are able to learn about NSRRC’s recent progress and scientific research directions, current/future facility capabilities and the latest user research. They also get a chance to discuss science with colleagues from the community on a one-to-one basis. Following the trend of past NSRRC Users' Meetings and Workshops, 474 experts, users and prospective users attended and participated in the events held from September 5 to 8, 2017. It was jointly organized by the UEC Chair, E-Wen Huang (Natl. Chiao-Tung Univ.) and Wei-Tsung Chuang (NSRRC).
The intensive meeting began on the morning of September 5. The UEC Chair, E-Wen Huang gave the opening remarks. In the plenary session, Director Shangjr Gwo gave an overview of the current status and future development of NSRRC. It was followed by a light source status report from the Light Source Division head, Ming-Chyuan Lin, and updates on the experimental facilities were reported by Yu-Shan Huang, the head of the Experimental Facility Division.
This year, President Mau-Chung Frank Chang of Natl. Chiao-Tung Univ. was invited to be the keynote speaker. His speech titled “Sync to Innovate,” was explicit about the power of cross-disciplinary research and joint-facility collaboration, using the example of System-on-Chip for medical applications. The invited oral presentations were given by four users who shared their recent distinguished work using the NSRRC facilities – packing of 1D and 3D conjugated molecules by Chien-Lung Wang (Natl. Chiao-Tung Univ.), structural and functional studies of c-di-GMP by Shan-Ho Chou (Natl. Chung Hsing Univ.), studies of ferrihydrite in environmental biogeochemistry by Yu-Ting Liu (Natl. Chung Hsing Univ.), and visualization of electronic structure with SR photoelectron spectroscopy by Chung-Lin Wu (Natl. Cheng Kung Univ.)
In the poster session, 247 posters were presented, including the 12 posters selected for oral contest presentations in the groups of Materials Science, Physics/Chemistry Science, and Biological Science. The “Glory of Taiwan Award” was presented to the winner of each group at the banquet the next day; the winners were Yu-Chang Lin (Natl. Chiao-Tung Univ., Advisor: Yan-Gu Lin), Yi-Ting Cheng (Natl. Taiwan Univ., Advisor: Chiu-Ping Cheng), and Shin-Fu Chen (Natl. Taiwan Univ., Advisor: Nei-Li Chan), respectively. The day-long schedule was also packed with the Users’ Town meeting, five interest group meetings for Protein X-ray Crystallography (PX), Powder X-ray Diffraction (PXRD), Synchrotron Radiation-based Microscopy (SRM), X-ray Absorption Spectroscopy (XAS), and X-ray and Neutron Scattering (XNS), and the day-program ended with a reception dinner.
Four topic-specific workshops took place during this period. Workshop I and II were held in parallel on September 6. Workshop I: Synchrotron for Industries was organized by Bor-Yuan Shew. Industrial experts from the fields of semiconductors, pharmaceuticals, green energy and polymers were invited to talk about their experiences, problems, and suggestions on using SR techniques. It was also expected to promote SR as a helpful tool for industrial innovation so as to elevate Taiwan’s global competitive strength. Workshop II: High Flux Small-Angle X-ray Scattering on Biological Complex Structures was organized by U-Ser Jeng, aiming to share recent developments and research results in biological SAX scattering instrumentation, protein solution measurements and data analysis, and ultra SAX scattering for large structure and biological structural kinetics in the millisecond to microsecond range. Workshop III: High Resolution X-ray Spectroscopy of Quantum Materials was a two-day workshop from September 7 to 8. It was organized by Ashish Atma Chainani for introducing challenging problems and hot topics in quantum materials which can be addressed by Resonant Inelastic X-ray scattering (RIXS) and Angle-resolved Photoemission Spectroscopy (ARPES). Workshop IV: TPS & Complementary Methods for Emerging Materials was held on September 7, and it was organized by E-Wen Huang. It was targeted to promote the newly developed TPS and the NSRRC neutron program that offers complementary advanced technology for materials research, and to discuss the possibility of building a new platform for Integrated Computational Materials Engineering (ICME).
The four days of scientific and social events provided an excellent forum for users to discuss issues concerning their experiments, user services and future development of NSRRC with Director Gwo and the NSRRC scientists. The diverse theme of this year's Users' Meeting and Workshops not only underlined the strong involvement of users to carry out basic sciences and applications at NSRRC, but also highlighted new technology and possible solutions to current scientific challenges. In total, 63 domestic and international speakers were invited to talk on their expertise – all offering opportunities to learn about the latest SR-related technology and research that can impact the scientific community. All sessions and workshops were well attended; the presentations encouraged valuable discussion among the participants. Both NSRRC staff and users surely learnt about each other from this year’s gathering.