A one-day Tutorial on XAFS titled "IUCr 2011 XAFS Tutorial for crystallographers and beginners" was held on August 22, 2011, in Madrid before the XXII International Congress and General Assembly of the International Union of Crystallography (IUCr2011, Madrid, August 22-30, 2011 http://www.iucr2011madrid.es/index.php/program/workshops). The first IUCr XAFS Tutorial was organized by Prof. K. Asakura in Tsukuba (Japan) before the main IUCr Congress in Osaka (IUCr2008).
This time, the Tutorial (workshop1 of the IUCr2011) was organized by Dr. I. Ascone, as Chair of the IUCr Commission on XAFS (France) and Prof. J. García Ruiz (Spain) in Cooperation with the IUCr 2011 Local Organizing committee, the IUCr Commission on XAFS and International X-ray Absorption Society (IXAS). Contributions and suggestions from the IXAS's Chair, Dr. H. Oyanagi, who also co-chaired the Tutorial, are gratefully acknowledged.
The main purpose of this Tutorial was to create a bridge between XAFS and Crystallographic communities, introducing beginners XAFS technique and giving particular emphasis to the local characterization of matter.
The organization of the Tutorial in the Main Congress site (Municipal Conference Center) and its connection with the main Congress' Committees helped to reach the objective. Fifty participants registered and the average presence at the Tutorial was approximately forty, mainly PhD students and Post-Doc concerned by crystallography.
The workshop started at 9:30 with a presentation of XAFS, given by Dr. Isabella Ascone (France), dedicated to beginners, in particular to PhD students who have never used XAFS technique or even synchrotron radiation. Prof. Christopher T. Chantler (Australia) summarized theoretical basis of the spectroscopy. Dr. Hiroyuki Oyanagi (Japan), presented experimental aspects, modes of measurements, details on the synchrotron radiation XAFS beamlines; advices on how to carry out the experiments were given. Three invited speakers reviewed XAFS applications to different fields: Prof. M. Fernandez Garcia (Spain) to Chemistry, Prof. J. Garcia Ruiz (Spain) to Physics and Material Science and Prof. B. Hedman (USA) to Biology.
Some tutorials provided hands-on practice of XAFS. In particular, Prof. A. Frenkel (US) explained how to analyze the EXAFS data using FEFF and Athena codes, while Dr. E. Nazarenko (SE) showed how to perform simulations of XANES using FDMNES code, with special emphasis to non-muffin tin calculations. EXCURVE code and examples of data analysis for protein samples were presented by Dr. W. Meyer-Klaucke (DE). The MXAN code for the fitting of the XANES spectra and the improved non-muffin tin approach was introduced by Dr. K. Hatada (Italy).
The Tutorial ended at 18:00, in time for the Opening Ceremony of IUCr2011.
The content of presentations, useful links and other teaching material transmitted by speakers will soon be available on this website.