summer recap, part 2: the advanced photon source!

The next stop on my summer of research was at the Advanced Photon Source at Argonne National Labs, in Illinois.



The APS is a grand-daddy of a synchrotron, about 1 km in diameter. The size of a synchrotron dictates the energy of light that it emits, hence a large(ish) synchrotron like the APS tends to focus on the high energy (aka hard) X-ray side of things, studying all sorts of cool things like EXAFS, XANES, protein crystallography and many other spectroscopic techniques.

The size also means that you need a tricycle to get around:


I guess that's about all I have to say about it. It's a top-notch facility, part of a giant research community. Argonne National Labs has a huge campus, employing somewheres around 3000-4000 people. It's like a science village! It has its own credit union and post-office to boot. Go apply to do awesome research at the APS!