Thank-you very much to all the speakers, attendees and especially the tour guides and helpers from Diamond who made this a fantastic event. For those who missed it, the program for Red Kite IV is available to download. The weather was awful but the bus stopped right outside Diamond house, so only the posters that were dropped in a puddle in Oxford got wet.
As soon as people had registered, the first session started with a quick introduction given by our hostess, Harriott Nowell (DLS), followed by the talks chaired by Sarah Barnett (DLS). The first talk was given by Steve Thompson (DLS) who discussed the powder beamline I11. This is currently undergoing an upgrade to add an extra experimental hutch for use on Long Duration Experiments where samples need only short data collections (seconds/minutes), but at very large intervals (days-months). Next was a presentation by Phil Chater (DLS), which was an introduction to a technique that was new to a lot of the audience, PDF analysis, and how data can be collected at Diamond and a the development of a new PDF beamline.
After the first session we had tea and home-made cakes (apparently this is a particularly popular part of the meeting), and those who had registered, went on a tour of the facility. It was very quiet in Diamond House while people were shown round the experimental hall and introduced to some of the beamlines, but as people slowly came back, the enthusiasm was audible. For those who had never seen Diamond before, the experience made a real impression – “Science is So Awesome” said one student on his return and the feeling seemed to be a general one.
With the tours over, we had the second session of talks. The first was an exceptional talk by Anna Warren (DLS) showing how some people on the protein beamlines struggle to see their crystals (never-mind mount, centre and collect data on them), and how tomography can help. This was followed by three shorter talks from students attendees. Jon Treacy (Manchester & DLS) gave a lovely talk on the structure of materials at interfaces, something that we often don’t really think about. Next was a Rich Knighton (Oxford) who presented his work on the challenging interlocked molecular structures before the session was finished by Karim Sutton (Oxford & DLS) who explained how tuning the wavelength on a single crystal diffraction beamline can give additional information.
After the final session, yhe usual tweeting poster prizes were awarded and there was the drinks reception with yet more posters before the coach arrived to take everyone back to Oxford. An excellent time was had by all we would like to thank all the staff at Diamond for their assistance making the event a roaring success. There are a few photos below to remind you of the day; we are looking forward to seeing everyone again at the next meeting in Oxford in January 2014.
