“Scattering is the most exciting way for me to study the materials I am making,” said NXS attendee Anya Mulligan, a graduate student at the University of California, Santa Barbara. “I’ve never done a beamline experiment before, and this experience has expanded my field of view. I also had not seen a national lab. Getting to see the equipment and talk to beamline scientists has given me so much more perspective on what I can do. I really thought I would be an industry engineer. Now I think a national lab could be a really great place to work. The people I’ve met so far seem really happy.”

At this time in their research career, the students typically know what their research will focus on yet still have sufficient time to incorporate additional techniques and approaches. 

“There are experiments I have been trying to figure out and plan but didn’t have enough familiarity to know there are certain problems I didn’t need to solve,” said Erick Lawrence, a graduate student at the University of California, Santa Barbara. “It has been great talking with the beamline scientists as we iterate on other problems I will need to address. But what impresses me most is how helpful the people are and how interested they are in giving help.”

The students bring broad diversity to the school: some possess a strong background in neutron scattering, X-ray scattering, or both, whereas others and their advisors know little about how neutrons can further their research. However, by the time the students complete NXS, that has changed.

This Oak Ridge National Laboratory news article "Students get hands-on learning at national labs through DOE’s 26th National School on Neutron and X-ray Scattering" was originally found on https://www.ornl.gov/news