EVENT DETAILS

Title : “From kitchen to battlefield, small-angle scattering applications in real life”

Speaker: Dr Jan Ilavsky, Senior Research Scientist, Argonne National Laboratory

Abstract : Materials scientist job is being a detective, investigating nature processes in order to provide humanity with better materials, new drugs, or simply better understanding of complex materials processes. This requires open mind, understanding of wide range of techniques and careful, sometimes tedious work of combining results together to build as reliable model of what is happening as possible. Small-angle scattering can be small – or large – part of portfolio of tools necessary for this investigative work.  This presentation will discuss unique instrument for measurement of ultra-small, small, and wide angle scattering available to user community at the Advanced Photon Source. Examples in which small-angle scattering technique has contributed keystone information necessary for these specific applications will be presented. From chocolate and food fats, through particle suspensions, polymers structures, new generation metallurgy necessary for 3D printed structure, to understanding of processes during explosions, in all these problems the small-angle scattering technique offered unique information which could not be obtained by other means.

Speaker Bio : Jan Ilavsky has been a beamline scientist responsible for the operations and development of the USAXS/SAXS/WAXS instrument for nearly 25 years. He is responsible for the development, maintenance, and improvements of the USAXS/SAXS/WAXS instrument, as well as for user support of over 60 user groups per year. He has 350+ journal publications and numerous invited and seminar conference lectures in the area of characterization of materials, mostly using scattering or imaging techniques. To support the SAS community at large, Dr. Ilavsky has developed three software packages that are widely used by the small-angle scattering (SAS) community: “Irena” has been used for over 20 years for SAS data modeling (nearly 1600 citations), “Nika” is used for area detectors data reduction (over 900 citations), and the “Indra” package is needed for USAXS data reduction.

Scientific interest of Jan to be materials scientist developing new methods for the characterization of complex engineering materials. The main area is currently energy production, energy utilization/storage, and the mitigation of impacts of energy production (CO2 retention, etc.). Alloys, especially 3D printed alloys, are also of major interest. Overall, his scientific motto can be summarized as “applying advanced small-angle scattering & diffraction techniques for understanding in-situ/in-service microstructural changes of complex engineering materials.