Master degree in Materials Science

  ALTERNATIVE TEACHING - The course objectives are unchanged

• Strenghtening of basic notions about: physical basis of radiation-matter interaction and their implementation in photon-in spectroscopies; X-ray sources and of the properties of the produced X-rays, related characterization opportunities.
• Acquisition of theoretical and experimental knowledge required to apply and interpret X-ray absorption and emission spectroscopies to determine structural and electronic properties of molecular species and materials.
• Critical understanding of the differences and complementarities between hard and soft X-ray spectroscopy
• Acquisition of knowledge and know-how about: pre-treatment and basic analysis of XAS data; designing, proposing and performing experiments at large scale facilities

  ALTERNATIVE TEACHING - The results of learning outcomes are unchanged

The course (frontal lessons, 3 CFU) and the “hand-on” training modules (1 CFU) will be given in English.

  ALTERNATIVE TEACHING - The lessons are delivered in "remote mode" for the whole perid of shut-down of the University facilities, according to the current governament regulations. In particular:

• video-recordings of ALL the 12 frontal lessons are available, following the instructions in the "Teaching Material" section.
• Video trainings and detailed instruction on laboratory activity are now available, following the instructions in the "Teaching Material" section.
• Weekly Webex virtual discussion sessions with the students are organized: the scheduling is communicated by e-mail to the students enrolled to the course.
• Students are encouraged to register to the course (essential to receive efficient updates by e-mail!) and to contact by e-mail the professor for any other matter.

The final examination will consist in an oral exam, organized as follows:

• Presentation (15/20 min, 10/15 slides) about one topic covered in (or relevant to) the course selected by the student (e.g., an X-ray spectroscopy technique, or a specific implementation of a technique, a research case-study/application field using X-ray spectroscopy, …)
  Starting from the topic presented, the student should be ready to address a general question about the topics covered in the lessons.
• A digital laboratory logbook (.pdf file) reporting the activity carried out during the laboratory part of the course, has to be sent by e-mail to the professor 1 week before the exam date, at latest.
  The evaluation of the logbook (A, B, C marks) will represent a “bonus” with respect to the mark (X/30) obtained in the oral exam (A: + 2/30; B: + 1/30; C: + 0/30).
  Only in the case of non-delivery, the student will receive a penalty of -2/30 with respect to the mark obtained in the oral exam.

  REMOTE EXAMS - If the June/July 2020 exam session will be held remotely, the oral exam will be carried out in teleconference mode via Webex: the students will share their screen to discuss their presentation and address the following general discussion. Specific instructions will follow in due time. The students are encouraged to contact the professor by e-mail at any time to fix a “virtual appointment” for advices and eventually support material about the topic selected for the exam.

• Brief review about: (i) Interaction between radiation and matter and its use in the characterization of materials: Transmission, scattering, absorption; excitation and de-excitation processes; overview on photon-in spectroscopies, focusing on the X-ray spectral domain. (ii) X-ray sources, from X-ray tubes to synchrotrons and XFELs: how X-ray photons are produced, their key properties and implications for the characterization of materials.
• X-ray Absorption spectroscopy (XAS) in the hard X-ray domain: basic principles, experimental requirements, setups, and detection schemes; XANES and EXAFS regions: theoretical background and accessible information.
• Soft X‐Ray Absorption Spectoscopy (NEXAFS): General theoretical and experimental/sample environment considerations in comparison with hard X-ray methods; electronical/chemical sensitivity of K-edge spectra of light elements (C, N, O) and L-edge spectra of transition metals; polarization-dependent NEXAFS, experimental setups and state-of-the-art approaches to bridge the pressure gap.
• X-ray Emission spectroscopy (XES): Basic theory of XES; chemical sensitivity of core-to-core and valence-to-core transitions to metal centers an their ligand environment; high-energy resolution XANES and resonant XES; experimental setups: source, spectrometers, detectors.
• Time-resolved X-ray spectroscopy on different time-scales: Quick-EXAFS and energy dispersive EXAFS; Ultrafast XAS and XES using the laser-pump X-ray probe scheme.
• Space-resolved X-ray spectroscopy: introduction to X-ray focusing optics; micro(nano)-spectroscopy & spectro-micro(nano)scopy approaches in the hard and soft X-ray domains.
• Selected case studies about the application of X-ray spectroscopy: metal ions in porous frameworks.
• Laboratory - “Hands-on" training on: (i) Optimizing samples for XAS and assessing the best XAS detection mode; (ii) Basic data treatment and interpretation of XAS data using ATHENA; (iii) XANES Linear Combination Fit (LCF) analysis with ATHENA; (iv) EXAFS fitting using ARTEMIS; (v) training activities on proposal writing to access large-scale facilities.

  ALTERNATIVE TEACHING - The program of the course is substantially unchanged. The only change regards point (v) of laboratory training about proposal writing, initially designed as a team work activity and difficult to implement in remote-mode: this is replaced with a strenghtening of the training for points (i)-(iv), easier to be carried out individually with the aid of video-trainings.

• Lesson slides and video-recordings (sufficient to adequately prepare the exam)
  
• Additional textbooks and suggested bibliography:
• van Bokhoven, J. A.; Lamberti, C., X-Ray Absorption and X-Ray Emission Spectroscopy: Theory and Applications. Wiley: 2016.
• Stöhr, J., NEXAFS Spectroscopy. Springer Berlin Heidelberg: 2013.
• Calvin, S., XAFS for Everyone. Taylor & Francis: 2013.
• Selected literature reviews and research papers, depending on the application case studies selected during the course also based on the feedback received by the class.