What area of research does your lab focus on?
The X-ray Scattering Lab at Penn State’s Materials Characterization Lab specializes in X-ray diffraction (XRD) and small- and wide-angle X-ray scattering (SAXS/WAXS). Our XRD tools are used to determine crystal structures, phase composition, stress, texture, and crystallinity in well-ordered materials, while SAXS/WAXS enables detailed characterization of amorphous and semi-crystalline materials.
How does the interdisciplinary aspect of your research enhance your work and add value to it?
The X-ray lab supports researchers from both academia and industry who work with a wide range of materials. By accommodating the measurement of powders, bulk samples, metals, polymers, thin films, nanoparticles, and single crystals, collaboration across many different research fields is a frequent occurrence.
The lab has performed characterization for many unique research projects, including quantifying strength and residual stress in metals, measuring the crystallinity of gummy bears, exploring nonambient properties of materials, and determining the orientation of polymers. Additionally, through the International Centre for Diffraction Data’s (ICDD) PDF 5 database, users in the X-ray lab have access to over one million XRD reference patterns to aide in phase identification and other analysis.
How does your lab enhance your student's education? Are there any ways that someone might find surprising?
As a user facility, the X-ray lab gives students from research groups across Penn State hands-on experience with advanced characterization instruments. After completing training, students can collect and analyze their own data, gaining a more practical understanding of X-ray characterization principles and how they apply to their research. Graduate students can also take a half-semester course on XRD offered by the lab in the fall and spring semesters.
Students who work as staff in the lab gain valuable experience in communication and instruction by training new users, troubleshooting experimental issues, assisting with the graduate level course, and addressing user questions.
From the Students
How has the experience working in this lab helped with your education?
From an undergraduate student working in the lab: Working in the X-ray lab as an undergraduate has given me hands-on experience with a wide variety of materials that directly reinforce concepts from my coursework. Applying these ideas to real research problems has helped me better understand the course content and see how it translates to research and industry applications. For example, Bragg’s law is taught early in the undergraduate curriculum, and the X-ray lab has allowed me to apply this principle directly to research applications.
From a graduate student working in the lab: Teaching the X-Ray diffraction (XRD) lab course helped me communicate my research with diffraction more effectively and teach it to new audiences. In working with graduate students from different departments, I got to see how they thought about and used the technique differently from me and this allowed me to widen my own toolset. This ranged from broad fundamental challenges like getting started in a new field to the fine details of designing experiments on materials I otherwise would never have learned about. This diversity of thought that I got would not have been accessible without this experience and has helped me to become both a better educator and a better researcher.
How do you engage with industry, and create connections and collaborations? What are the benefits for both sides - your research and for the company?
Industry partners bring in a wide variety of samples to be characterized in our lab, expanding our experience with varied materials, and pushing the development of new characterization techniques which benefit the long-term growth of the lab. For industry, our lab provides an excellent way to obtain high-quality characterization data from advanced instrumentation, pulling on our staff’s expertise in the XRD field. Multi-day XRD seminars are offered over the summer for industry partners who can benefit from increasing their familiarity with XRD. Furthermore, the X-ray lab has facilitated collaborations between industry and academic institutions other than Penn State, bringing an even broader network of researchers together.
