Integrated Imaging: the Sum is Greater than the Parts

Most natural and manufactured materials are spatially complex and heterogeneous, and their performance is typically linked to this heterogeneity. Bulk analysis methods ignore these realities, but imaging and microscopy offer a way to see the real material in all of its complexity and explore its local behavior. When combined with spectroscopy, diffraction, or other analytical methods they allow one to understand what one sees. One can further watch materials at work in situ or operando using x-ray and electron microscopy, with unparalleled sensitivity to trace elements, chemical speciation, lattice strain, and electron spin, along with 4D visualization capabilities as the temporal dimension is invoked.  However, as powerful as these individual approaches are, usually no single measurement provides all the information needed to understand a material. Argonne’s efforts integrate DOE Scientific User Facilities such as the APS, EMC, CNM with other imaging capabilities at Argonne, and with the analytical and visualization opportunities offered by the MCS, ALCF and related petascalecomputational and data analysis facilities.

The goal of Argonne’s Integrated Imaging Initiative (I3) is twofold: firstly to provide a bridge across these capabilities to couple the full range of Argonne’s imaging methods with simulation results to close the loop between design, simulation, synthesis, characterization, and analysis. Secondly to act as a portal to external partners interested in engaging with Argonne in the area of integrated imaging.

In this seminar I will give a brief overview of I3 and then provide some specific examples taken from my own group’s research on applying a combination of different imaging modalities together with simulation and modeling to address scientific challenges related to magnetic and multiferroicnanostructures. 

Dr. Amanda K. Petford-Long is an Argonne Distinguished Fellow in the Materials Science Division at Argonne National Laboratory. In addition to her own research program, she heads the strategic initiative on Integrated Imaging at Argonne and is a professor in the Materials Science and Engineering Department at Northwestern University, where she is active in graduate teaching. She holds a D.Philin Materials Science from the University of Oxford and a Bachelor’s degree in Physics from University College, London. She moved to Argonne in 2005 from the University of Oxford where she was a full professor in the Materials Department. From January 2010–Feb 2014 she was director of the Center for NanoscaleMaterials, a Department of Energy national user facility at Argonne. Her research is centered on understanding the way in which the energy landscape of ferroicnanostructures, and thus their behavior, can be controlled through proximity of different materials, size/shape, and microstructure/composition. A particular emphasis is on magnetic and resistive-switching nanostructures with potential applications in information storage technology, and on the use of in-situ TEM to explore behavior. She has published over 300 scientific papers. She is a Fellow of the Royal Academy of Engineering and of the American Physical Society.