|
 |
As a B.Sc. and M.Sc. chemistry student at the
University of Manitoba, I was fascinated by experiments involving
spectroscopic measurements that characterize (or determine) the atomic
and electronic structure of chemical compounds. I was especially interested
in the theory of spectroscopy,
although I had very little theoretical background.
In 1963, while looking for a topic and place for my Ph.D., I stumbled
across the first book on a new form of spectroscopy known as “Mössbauer
Spectroscopy,” named after Rudolph
Mössbauer, the German physicist who discovered it by accident
in 1957 and won the Nobel prize in physics shortly after. I was hooked.
From that day on, I became very interested in this new spectroscopy,
which used gamma rays from radioactive sources such as 57Co
(cobalt) or 119Sn (tin). After a Shell
Scholarship enabled me to study at the University of Cambridge, I
contacted an old friend, Ian Smith (who began his Ph.D. studies at
Cambridge in 1962) about possible research opportunities at Cambridge.
Fortuitously, he found out that a chemistry department radiochemist,
Dr. A.G. Maddock, had an opening. And as luck would have it, he was
planning to build a Mössbauer spectrometer. It appeared that
I had ended up in the right place at the right time.
Dr. Maddock welcomed me to his group in October 1964. And in my first
week at Cambridge, he scribbled down on the back of an envelope what
he considered would be the important components of this new Mössbauer
spectrometer. I had my first mission. Fortunately, with a lot of help
from the electronics shop at the chemistry department, I was able
to get an automated spectrometer working well in about six months.
Since it was a novel technique, several chemists and mineralogists
soon became very interested in characterizing iron-containing chemicals
and minerals using this spectroscopy. It was the beginning of several
very productive collaborations.
And it is exactly this type of research with my collaborative partners
that initiated a valuable strategy that I still follow today: collaborative
research in several different scientific fields, with both very basic
components (including simple theory) and very applied components.
For example, with any new spectroscopy there are opportunities to
develop the spectroscopic method—by discovering new phenomena
and devising simple theories to explain and predict both the new features
(peaks) and the previously known features. A good understanding of
spectroscopy can then be applied to gain an enhanced understanding
in both basic and applied research areas. I have always felt strongly
that it is possible to do outstanding basic and applied research,
and that one enhances the other.
After my stint at Cambridge, I returned to Canada in 1970 and headed
to the University of Western Ontario (UWO) where I set up an active
chemistry and mineralogy program using Mössbauer spectroscopy.
But new challenges were looming. I wanted to begin research in another
novel form of spectroscopy, photoelectron spectroscopy, which had
been developed in the 1960s mainly by groups at Uppsala University
in Sweden and Oxford University in England.
With support from the National Research Council (NRC) and the Department
of Chemistry at UWO (and with groups from the University of Toronto
and Windsor involved in a Southwestern Ontario consortium), in 1972
I purchased a photoelectron spectrometer for research using far ultraviolet
and X-ray photons. This newest instrument supported a very diverse
program of investigation—from the observation and characterization
of a new effect in the spectra (the ligand field splitting); to determining
the order of molecular orbitals in organic and organometallic molecules;
to the absorption of metals on minerals; to applied industrial surface
science, with support from a number of steel companies.
Towards the Canadian Synchrotron
In 1973-74 a Canadian synchrotron facility was first proposed by Bill
McGowan, Director of the Centre for Chemical Physics at the University
of Western Ontario. Synchrotron radiation (SR) or synchrotron light
(SL) (an intense, focussed source of radiation covering over one-half
of the electromagnetic spectrum from the far infrared (IR) through
the IR, visible and ultraviolet (UV) to the soft and hard X-ray region)
is produced when high-energy electrons are bent in a magnetic field.
Why did SL excite me to the extent that it did? That’s because
it was apparent that I could do much better photoelectron spectroscopy
experiments with SL than with laboratory sources of radiation. I was
able to conduct preliminary experiments in 1975 at the small Tantalus
Laboratory at the University of Wisconsin outside Madison, Wisconsin,
followed by a six-month sabbatical there. Even with this small low-energy
synchrotron, I saw the amazing possibilities of SL for research in
many areas.
In 1979, with funding from the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research
Council (NSERC) and the NRC, and with great support from UWO, I was
able to establish a soft X-ray beamline at the Tantalus synchrotron
(and later the Aladdin synchrotron) at the University of Wisconsin.
The Canadian Synchrotron Radiation Facility (CSRF) was formed. With
further funding from Materials and Manufacturing Ontario and NSERC,
the CSRF now includes three soft X-ray beamlines (covering the energy
range 20 eV to 4000 eV). It has produced some 40 reviewed publications
per year over the last decade from a diverse Canadian user community—mainly
from chemistry, geology, and physics departments.
I have spent the past 22 years using synchrotron radiation in the
far UV and soft X-ray region in many different basic and applied research
areas. Numerous M.Sc. and Ph.D. students, postdoctoral fellows, and
research scientists have routinely travelled 10 hours by car from
London, Ontario, to the CSRF outside Madison to do their research,
often working 20-hour days for two to three weeks at a time. Using
techniques such as high resolution photoelectron, Auger and absorption
spectroscopies, their research has spanned a number of diverse areas
of chemistry, physics, geology, and tribology. View
more detailed information.
Over 150 research papers and several large reviews have been published
on this research in the last 20 years in international chemistry,
physics, geology, and engineering journals. I am particularly grateful
to the management of the Synchrotron Radiation Center (SRC) in Madison,
Wisconsin, for enabling us to build beamlines at the SRC (often with
a great deal of help from their employees), and for allowing us to
use the synchrotron beams for no charge over 20 years. This has been
an incredible gesture of international collegiality. We must also
recognize the impressive work of the UWO employees permanently at
the CSRF over the years (Kim Tan, Brian Yates, B.X. Yang, X.H. Feng,
Emil Hallin, Greg Retzlaff, and Y.F. Hu) who have been central to
the success of the CSRF.
With the formation of the Canadian Institute for Synchrotron Radiation
(CISR) in 1990, the science community once again began concerted lobbying
to fund a Canadian national synchrotron facility. After a great deal
of effort by many people (particularly Dennis Skopik, George Ivany,
Dennis Johnson, and their team at the University of Saskatchewan),
on March 31, 1999, it was announced that the Canada Foundation for
Innovation would provide 40 percent ($56.4 million) of the cost of
the Canadian Light Source (CLS) project at the University of Saskatchewan.
As the news release at the time said, “the CLS represents an
unprecedented level of collaboration among governments, universities,
and industry in Canada.” In addition to the University of Saskatchewan,
18 Canadian universities endorsed the CLS project on behalf of the
300 users (at that time) of synchrotron light in Canada. After 25
years of promoting SL and a Canadian synchrotron, I was thrilled that
this facility would finally be constructed.
The Canadian Light Source—the most versatile
spectroscopic source
The Canadian Light Source is the largest scientific project—both
in size and cost—in Canada in at least the past 30 years. CLS
Inc. (CLSI) has been incorporated as a not-for-profit corporation,
wholly owned by the University of Saskatchewan, to carry out national
mandates in synchrotron research and development.
Due to strategic planning by the University of Saskatchewan, and the
tremendous efforts of a dedicated CLS staff and many academic users,
the progress in the past three years has been quite remarkable. The
immense new building (84 metres by 83 metres in area, and 20 metres
high at the centre) was opened on time and on budget on February 26,
2001. Visit the
CLS Web site and photo gallery.
The storage ring and at least six beamlines at the CLS are expected
to be operating by 2004. Numerous projects are already planned, and
each beamline will have an important and unique purpose. View
more detailed information about CLS projects and research methods.
In addition to the research projects underway and in development at
the CLS, groups have been forming to initiate unique medical research
that could one day have a significant impact on our ability to diagnose
and treat disease. For example, a medical research and imaging beamline
and a MEMS (micro-electrical mechanical systems)/lithography beamline
are under consideration. And at workshops in Saskatoon, Professor
J. Chikawa from Spring-8 in Japan, and Professor W. Thomlinson from
ESRF in Grenoble, France, showed remarkable improvements in imaging
techniques for angiography, mammography, and bronchiography. The latter
two techniques show great promise for early detection of breast cancer
and lung cancer.
By 2015, we expect the mature CLS facility to be operating with 25
to 30 beamlines. It will also have about 100 scientists in almost
every scientific discipline, and from practically every point on the
globe, all working on the CLS floor together one day; it is expected
that the facility will host close to 2000 users in one year. Watching
all this unfold, it gives me great satisfaction to know that not only
will the interdisciplinary research on the CLS floor lead to important
basic and industrial research, with significant industrial spin offs,
it will also demonstrate the value of team work and collaboration
to help achieve extraordinary goals. And that is a lesson I learned
at the University of Cambridge almost 40 years ago.
Back to top
|
|
