New Opportunities at the Advanced Light Source: Using Intermediate-Energy X-rays To Investigate Collective Behavior in Interacting Electron Systems

In an effort to address one of the grand challenges for condensed matter physics in the 21st century, namely to gain an understanding of the physics of materials which exhibit collective electronic phenomena the Advanced Photon Source, Argonne National Laboratory is developing a new intermediate-energy x-ray beamline.  This beamline, which is slated to go online in the spring of 2012, is being developed to investigate collective behavior in interacting electron systems using two distinct but complementary techniques: angle resolved photoemission spectroscopy and resonant soft x-ray scattering.  In this talk, I will discuss some of the unique capabilities being developed for the beamline and present several examples of collective behavior in interacting electron systems including electron-phonon coupling, spin and charge density waves and orbital ordering in high-temperature superconductors, transition metal oxides and graphen.