13-17 November 2023
Africa/Johannesburg timezone
Big Science and Big Goals for Africa

Watching real materials in real devices with the atomic pair distribution function (PDF)

14 Nov 2023, 15:00
30m
AfLS Plenary

Speaker

Simon Billinge (Columbia University)

Description

Nanoparticles, nanoporous materials and nanostructured bulk materials are at the heart of next generation technological solutions in sustainable energy, effective new pharmaceuticals and environmental remediation. A key to making progress is to be able to understand the nanoparticle structure, the arrangements of atoms in the nanoparticles and nanoscale structures. Also critical is understanding the distribution of the nanoparticles and how they change in time as devices run and reactions take place. We use advanced x-ray, neutron and electron scattering methods to get at this problem. I will talk about these methods and show some recent success-stories in the fields of sustainable energy, environmental remediation and cultural heritage preservation. However, I will also discuss the fundamental limitations on our ability to extract information from the data and how we are now turning to machine learning and artificial intelligence techniques to give more insights.

Primary author

Simon Billinge (Columbia University)

Presentation Materials