From March 18th to 22nd, Dr. Oleksandr Mykhaylyk from the University of Sheffield (UK) was invited to South China Advanced Institute for Soft Matter Science and Technology (AISMST) to have a deep discussion with the staff and students on common research interests and to deliver a speech on March 21st about Application of Small-angle X-ray Scattering (SAXS) for Structural Characterization of Materials.

 Dr. Oleksandr Mykhaylyk from the University of Sheffield (UK)

SAXS is a kind of nondestructive measurement and could be used to characterize nano to macro scale structures. With the development of optical components, synchrotron radiation facilities, lab grade SAXS instrument, mathematical models and data analysis technique, SAXS measurement has become a reliable and widely accepted soft matter structure-characterizing technique. Due to the work from Dr. Mykhaylyk and other members of the research group, a lab grade SAXS instrument was developed. The liquid metal jet x-ray source of this lab grade SAXS instrument can support high x-ray flux which is comparable with synchrotron radiation level. This lab grade instrument extends the application of SAXS measurement and provides more flexibility for different materials under various testing condition.

 Scene of speech

In his speech, Dr. Mykhaylyk introduced several examples of researches based on SAXS measurement, including the transformation between real space and reciprocal space, developed technique on characterizing the structure composed of nanoparticles and colloid. Time-resolved SAXS measurement was applied to study flow induced semi-crystalline polymer. The structural orientation transformation of polymer was observed under high amplitude oscillating shear. The self-assembly mechanism of organic halide perovskite, crystallization kinetics and thermally induced copolymer phase transformation were studied via SAXS measurement.

Dr. Oleksandr Mykhaylyk is the head of Soft Matter AnalyticaL Laboratory (SMALL) of the University of Sheffield (UK). He has great international reputation on visible light, neutron and x-ray scattering, including small-angle x-ray scattering, small-angle neutron scattering, x-ray Diffraction and single crystal diffraction.