Cornell will host six workshops in June. The goal of the workshops is to assess the state of the art of science at the hard X-ray Diffraction Limit (hence, the name for the workshops: XDL-2011). This is a collaboration between CHESS, DESY, the Photon Factory and SSRL to study science that can be done with diffraction-limited, high repetition-rate, brilliant x-sources on the horizon. The workshops will start with what is at the edge of feasibility today and lead into what may be feasible with next generation sources, such as Energy Recovery Linacs and Ultimate Storage Rings.

One of six workshops is the high pressure workshop, entitled “High pressure science at the edge of feasibility”, organized by Russell Hemley, Neil Ashcroft, Roald Hoffmann, John Parise and Zhongwu. The purpose is to assess the state-of-the-art on the use of x-ray diffraction and x-ray spectroscopic techniques (1) to determine the structures and properties of materials at extreme conditions of pressure and temperature and (2) to explore the time-resolved dynamics and kinetics of the nucleation, growth and transformation of materials under extreme conditions.

The emphasis is on new approaches for very small samples under extreme conditions that would be enabled by the intense hard x-ray nano-beams that will be feasible with new continuous-duty x-ray sources.

This two-day’s workshop will be held during the period of June 23-24 at Cornell. This workshop, has invited 16 world well-known speakers who are extremely active in static or dynamic high pressure studies with heavy access and use of synchrotron x-ray sources. Their talks will be covering a broad spectrum of scientific topics at extreme conditions from geophysics, condensed matter physics, chemistry, materials science, nanotechnology to the detector development with future application to the time-resolved measurements.

I believe that this workshop may be of interest to you. We very much appreciate your participation, discussion and significant contribution to this workshop. On behave of the workshop committee, I would like to take this chance and kindly invite you to look at the detail of the workshop and thus register at http://erl.chess.cornell.edu/gatherings/2011_Workshops/details4.htm

Zhongwu Wang
Cornell High Energy Synchrotron Sources (CHESS)

On behalf of workshop committee:

Russell J. Hemley (Carnegie Institute of Washington)
Neil Ashcroft (Cornell University)
Roald Hoffmann (Cornell University)
John Parise (SUNY Stony Brook)
Zhongwu Wang (Cornell University)