MUON Workshop

The Division of Materials Research provides funds to support a virtual workshop organized by the Materials Research Society. The workshop will be a venue for scientific exchange among North American scientists to become exposed to the diverse muon spectroscopy techniques and the science enabled by future muon facility. The workshop will showcase recent results and provide a forum for scientific discussion of muon-enabled research in fields as diverse as hard and soft condensed matter, biology, magnetism, engineering materials, and instrument development.

This will be achieved through a combination of invited oral presentations, and break-out sessions. Ample opportunities for spontaneous discussions and collaboration are built into the program to facilitate the free exchange of new scientific ideas and to explore the potential use of powerful muon scattering methods. The workshop will bring together university faculty, students, post-docs, and national laboratory scientists to communicate and discuss the latest developments in all areas of Muon science and to draft a roadmap for the future of muon spectroscopy facility.

The workshop is scheduled for February 1-2, 2021 and will be a virtual meeting. A report will be generated at the end of the workshop, outlining the milestones and a timeline that will be used to guide a future Muon project for the US. NSF funds are used to maximizing the participation of graduate students and post-docs.

Muon spin spectroscopic is an experimental technique using beams of spin-polarized muons to perform scientific experiments in condensed matter physics, engineering, energy materials, chemistry and biology. The technique has a long, well-established history of high-profile scientific productivity, but there is currently no facility in the US capable of performing these experiments.

The Division of Materials Research provides funds to support a virtual workshop organized by the Materials Research Society. The workshop will be a venue for scientific exchange among North American scientists to become exposed to the diverse muon spectroscopy techniques and the science enabled by a muon facility. The workshop will showcase recent results and provide a forum for scientific discussion of muon-enabled research in fields as diverse as hard and soft condensed matter, biology, magnetism, engineering materials, and instrument development.

This will be achieved through a combination of invited oral presentations, and break-out sessions. Ample opportunities for spontaneous discussions and collaboration are built into the program to facilitate the free exchange of new scientific ideas and to explore the potential use of powerful muon scattering methods. The workshop will bring together university faculty, students, post-docs, and national laboratory scientists to communicate and discuss the latest developments in all areas of Muon science and to draft a roadmap for the future of muon spectroscopy facility.

The workshop is scheduled for February 1-2, 2021 and will be a virtual meeting. A report will be generated at the end of the workshop, outlining the milestones and a timeline that will be used to guide a future Muon project for the US. NSF funds are used to maximizing the participation of graduate students and post-docs.

This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.