Ian Robinson

Structure analysis of nanocrystals and nanowires Surface structure determination by CTR and GISAXS Phase contrast imaging using hard X-rays X-ray diffraction methods development Contact details: Office: Lab 1 Room 4C1 Tel: +44 (0)20 7679-8313 Ext: 37365 Fax: +44 (0)20 7679 0595 Email: i.robinsonucl.ac.uk

My specialisation is X-ray diffraction using synchrotron radiation. During the Bell Labs years, I developed the methods for studying surface structure using X-ray diffraction. These methods, based on crystal truncation rods, have become the definitive technique for the determination of the atomic positions at surfaces and interfaces. These surface methods are still used today at the major SR facilities, NSLS (Brookhaven), ESRF (Grenoble), APS(Chicago) and SRS (Daresbury). More recently I have been developing method of using the very high coherence of the latest SR sources to enable direct 3D imaging of structure. This is potentially useful for examining strain distributions inside complex materials.

The coherent X-ray diffraction methods will develop and expand further with the inauguration of the new Diamond Light Source (DLS) presently being built at Rutherford Lab near Oxford. My research at UCL is largely focused on this development, although we continue to do experiments at ESRF and APS during the buildup period.

• Presently teaching 3C25 Solid State Physics
• Half time appointment with Diamond Light Source to develop X-ray coherence and imaging methods
• Leader of the ‘surface and interface’ “village” at DLS
• A list of PhD projects is available for donwload

Recent Publications

"Three-dimensional Imaging of Micro structure in Gold Nanocrystals I. A. Vartanyants and I. K. Robinson, Physical Review Letters 90 175501-1 (2003). This paper describes the first three diemsional reconstruction of the shape of a nanocrystal.", G. J. Williams, M. A. Pfeifer,

"Three Dimensional X-ray Diffraction Microscopy", Ian Robinson and Jianwei Miao, Materials Science Bulletin 29 177-181 (2004). This is a review of new imaging methods based on coherent X-ray diffraction.

"Perturbation Method of analysis of Crystal Truncation Rod Data", I. K. Robinson, M. Tabuchi, S. Hisadome, R. Oga and Y. Takeda, Journal of Applied Crystallography 38 299-305 (2005) New method of direct analysis of interface structures based on crystal truncation rods.

Biography

My degrees are from Cambridge (Natural Science, 1976) and Harvard (Biophysics, 1981). I worked for 11 years at Bell Labs in its heyday and then started teaching as Professor of Physics at the University of Illinois (Urbana, USA) in 1992. I came to UCL in 2006.