2008 NOV 24 - (VerticalNews.com) -- "This very first report of ail X-ray absorption spectroscopy experiment at Synchrotron SOLEIL is part of a long-term study dedicated to pathological calcifications," researchers in Orsay, France report.

  "Such biological entities composed of various inorganic and/or organic compounds also contain trace elements. In the case of urinary calculi, different papers already published have pointed out that these oligo-elements may promote or inhibit crystal nucleation as well as growth of mineral," wrote D. Bazin and colleagues, University of Paris ...read more

  2008 NOV 24 - (VerticalNews.com) -- "A GE Revolution 41RT flat-panel detector (GE 41RT) from GE Healthcare (GE) has been in operation at the Advanced Photon Source for over two years. The detector has an active area of 41. cm x 41 cm with 200 mu m x 200 mu m pixel size," scientists in the United States report.

  "The nominal working photon energy is around 80 keV The physical set-up and utility software of the detector system are discussed in this article. The linearity of the detector response was measured at 80.7 keV The memory effect of the detector element, called lag, was also measured at different exposure times and gain settings. The modulation transfer function was measured in terms of the line-spread function using a 25 mu m x 1 cm tungsten slit. The background (dark) signal, the signal that the detector will carry without exposure to X-rays, was measured at three different gain settings and with exposure times of 1 ms to 15 s. The radial geometric flatness of the sensor panel was measured using the diffraction pattern from a CeO2 powder standard. The large active area and fast data-capturing rate, i.e. 8 frames s(-1) in radiography mode, 30 frames s(-1) in fluoroscopy mode, make the GE 41RT one of a kind and very versatile in synchrotron diffraction. The loading behavior of a Cu/Nb multilayer material is used to demonstrate the use of the detector in a strain-stress experiment," wrote J.H. Lee and colleagues ...read more

  2008 NOV 24 - (VerticalNews.com) -- "A series of Al 2p, K 2p, O 1s and N 1s core-level spectra have been used to characterize the interaction between potassium (K) and tris(8-hydroxyquinoline) aluminium (Alq(3)) molecules in the K-doped Alq3 layer. All core-level spectra were tuned to be very surface sensitive in selecting various photon energies provided by the wide-range beamline at the National Synchrotron Radiation Research Center, Taiwan," scientists in Hsinchu, Taiwan report ...read more