EBS workshop on X-ray Raman scattering spectroscopy

More than 50 people from 7 countries and 3 continents came together in the ESRF auditorium from April 3-5 to discuss recent, present, and future aspects of X-ray Raman scattering spectroscopy. The program included 24 oral and 16 poster presentations and covered many aspects of the small but growing field of this non-resonant inelastic X-ray scattering technique.

The program included seven sessions, the first of which was a session on instrumentation focusing on the capabilities of the ID20 instrument on the one hand and highlighting the efforts at other synchrotron facilities to likewise provide next generation XRS spectrometers on the other hand. A growing number of dedicated end stations in Europe and worldwide will help form a strong and growing XRS user community. A session on theory and computational aspects demonstrated the range of readily available computer codes to calculate XRS spectra based on atomic structural models. The ease of measuring soft X-ray absorption spectra of liquids at ambient conditions was well highlighted in a session on liquid systems. A dedicated session on high pressure science is proof of the extraordinary capabilities of measuring low energy X-ray absorption spectra using sample-environment-penetrating hard X-rays. The unique aspects of the achievable variable momentum transfer in XRS were clear when a new approach to directly image electronic orbitals in strongly correlated electron systems was presented during the session on strongly correlated electron systems. Finally, a large interest from a growing number of users from the energy materials was apparent in a last session on energy materials.

All participants welcomed the efforts of the ESRF in the field of XRS in general, appreciated the effort to organize this workshop in particular, and committed to future meetings of similar kind.