Eleanor Taylor

To improve the air quality of Beijing 

and ensure a healthy atmosphere for 

athletes and spectators at the 2008 

Summer Olympics, Argonne has been 

working with leading institutions, 

including the U.S. Environmental 

Protection Agency, the University 

of Tennessee, Tsinghua University, 

Peking University and the Chinese 

Academy of Sciences.

The team has researched and 

modeled the local and regional 

contributors to Beijing’s air quality, 

leading to a greater understanding of 

regional air quality management and 

development of new emission control 

strategies. The modeling study has 

been widely cited by Chinese policy 

makers, including the Beijing mayor, in 

requesting the government to implement 

unprecedented regional control 

programs to ensure that the air quality 

goals for 2008 will be met in Beijing.

This research was funded by the 

U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. 

The report, “Air quality during the 

2008 Beijing Olympic Games,” is 

available online.

“Air quality in Beijing in the 

summertime is dictated by meteorology 

and topography,” said David Streets, a 

senior scientist in Argonne’s Decision 

and Information Sciences Division.

“Typically, temperatures are high, 

humidity is high, wind speeds are 

low, and the surrounding hills restrict 

venting of pollution. Thus, regional 

pollutants and ozone build up over 

several days until dispersed by wind or 

removed by rain.

“Our modeling suggests that 

emission sources far from Beijing exert 

a significant influence on Beijing’s 

air quality,” Streets said. “Typical 

industrial, coal-burning cities within 

several hundred kilometers of Beijing 

add to the local pollution. In these 

areas, emission controls on stationary 

sources and vehicles are not as 

stringent as in Beijing, and emissions 

are high. Each province’s contribution 

varies dramatically from day to day, 

depending on wind direction and other 

meteorological factors.

“The Olympic Games are of 

paramount importance to China,” 

Streets said, “and great steps have 

already been taken to ensure success.”

“The United States is diligently 

working with cities like Beijing to 

improve environmental controls and 

reduce emissions in the face of rapid 

economic development,” said Steve 

Page, director of EPA’s Office of Air 

Argonne National Laboratory is managed by UChicago argonne, llc

for the u.s. department of energy

Quality Planning and Standards. “Over 

the past several years, Beijing has 

implemented a number of measures 

to improve air quality, and China is 

now looking at regional approaches to 

meeting air quality standards similar to 

successful approaches used in the U.S. 

The air quality improvements from their 

actions will benefit everyone.” n

www.anl.gov/Media_Center/News/2007/

Beijing_report_final.pdf

Update

FALL 2007

Argonne helps improve 

air quality for 2008 

Beijing Olympics

The Community Newsletter of Argonne National Laboratory

Photo of a Beijing scene before a 2005 rain 

storm, and the same scene after the storm.

Office of

Science U.S. DEPARTMENT OF ENERGY

Donna Jones Pelkie

A catalyst developed by Argonne 

researchers could help diesel truck 

manufacturers eliminate harmful nitrogenoxide emissions from diesel exhausts.

The technology — which has 

a patent pending — appears so 

promising that multiple large and 

small companies have expressed 

interest in licensing it and working 

with Argonne researchers to scale up 

the technology and bring it to market. 

Argonne researcher Christopher 

New catalyst helps eliminate NOx from 

diesel exhaust

Marshall, one of the technology’s 

developers, believes there could be a 

commercially available product within 

two to three years.

Nitrogen oxides — collectively 

called “NOx” — contribute to smog, 

acid rain and global warming. Yet they 

are among the most difficult pollutants 

to eliminate from diesel exhaust. For 

example, many technologies that reduce 

NOx result in increases in undesirable 

particulate emissions.

“For diesel engines, we envision 

A catalyst developed by Argonne researchers could help diesel truck manufacturers eliminate 

harmful nitrogen-oxide emissions from diesel exhausts. The catalyst is shown here by researcher 

Christopher Marshall. The catalyst will be placed in the reactor at left which is then connected to the 

diesel engine pictured in the background with post-doctoral researcher Sundar Krishnan, left, and 

Argonne researcher Steve Ciatti. Photo by George Joch.

Sylvia Carson

A surprising technique to concentrate, 

manipulate and separate a wide 

class of swimming bacteria has been 

identified through collaboration between 

researchers at Argonne, Illinois Institute 

of Technology, University of Arizona 

at Tucson and Cambridge University, 

U.K. This device could have enormous 

applications in biotechnology and 

biomedical engineering, including use 

in miniaturized medical diagnostic kits 

and bioanalysis.

 The technique is based on the 

transmission of tiny electric current 

in a thin film sample cell containing a 

colony of bacteria. The current produces 

electrolysis that changes the local pH 

level in the vicinity of the electrodes. 

The bacteria, uncomfortable with the 

changes in pH, swim away from the 

electrodes and ultimately congregate 

in the middle of the experimental 

Researchers develop technique for bacteria crowd control

(See “Catalyst” on page 3)

cell. Concentrated bacteria form selforganized swirls and jets resembling 

vortices in vigorously stirred fluid.

The method, which is suitable for 

flagellated bacteria such as E. coli, 

Bacillus subtilis, among many others, 

relies on the ability of bacteria to swim 

toward areas of optimal pH level. The 

bacteria live in an environment of a 

specific pH level, so that an increase or 

decrease of pH stimulates the bacteria to 

avoid areas of non-comfortable pH and 

swim in the direction of pH gradient. 

The researchers used an electric current 

to create a controlled deviation of the 

pH levels from the bulk values. Since 

only living bacteria respond to the pH 

stimulation, using this method can 

separate living and dead cells or bacteria 

with different motility.

The device, with the capability 

to change the thickness of a film 

from one millimeter to one micron 

(with five-percent accuracy) and 

control the position of electrodes, is 

intended to separate and concentrate 

small quantities of living and dead 

microorganisms in confined spaces. 

It can be used for the purposes of 

express bioanalysis, diagnostics 

and identification of small bacterial 

samples, and to separate sick and 

live cells. A patent for the device is 

currently pending.

“Using this method, our research 

Bacteria swimming in a thin film.

(See “Bacteria” on page 2)
For more information on these and many other research developments, see the Argonne Web site at www.anl.gov.

2 ARGONNE UPDATE / FALL 2007

Argonne Update is published by Communications and Public Affairs. n Send news items to Editor 

Dave Jacqué, Building 201, Room 261 (C&PA-201). Voice: (630) 252-5582. Fax: (630) 252-5274. 

E-mail: info@anl.gov. n Argonne National Laboratory is managed by UChicago Argonne, LLC for the 

U.S. Department of Energy. n VOL. 13, NO. 1

Scientists at Argonne have started work 

that could provide clean, renewable fuels for 

transportation using a variety of feedstocks. 

Here, chemist Jeffrey Elam (ES), front, holds 

a prototype membrane that is ready to be 

evaluated in a catalytic testing reactor operated 

by chemical engineer Donald Cronauer (CMT).

Jennifer deAngelis

More efficient and less costly solar 

cells, solid-state lighting and industrial 

catalysts are potential applications 

of atomic layer deposition (ALD), a 

technique that Argonne researchers are 

working to perfect. Other potential applications are improved superconductors 

and separation membranes.

ALD is a thin-film growth 

technique that offers the unique 

capability to coat complex, threedimensional objects with precisely 

fitted layers. The scientists expose an 

object to a sequence of reactive gas 

pulses to apply a film coating over 

the object’s surface. The chemical 

reactions between the gases and the 

surface naturally terminate after the 

completion of a “monolayer” exactly 

one molecule thick. ALD can deposit a 

variety of materials, including oxides, 

nitrides, sulfides and metals.

What makes ALD more effective 

and flexible than traditional methods, 

such as evaporation, for producing thinfilm coatings is its ability to coat every 

nook and cranny of a complex object.

Scientists use this procedure to 

fabricate nanostructured catalytic 

membranes, or NCMs. These 

structures enable catalytic reactions 

that, for example, convert inexpensive 

feedstocks into valuable products and 

synthesize hydrocarbon fuels. Argonne 

Atomic layer deposition fuels future solutions to nation’s energy challenges

has filed for a patent on NCMs.

“We are focusing our attention 

now on measuring the properties of 

the catalysts and synthesizing other 

catalytically relevant materials inside 

the NCMs,” said Jeffrey Elam, a 

research chemist in Argonne’s Energy 

Systems Division.

Elam, along with Michael Pellin of 

Argonne’s Materials Science Division, 

has been working with NCMs to carry 

out chemical reactions to produce 

materials that help the nation sustain 

itself in a more cost-effective and 

efficient manner.

One of the Argonne researchers’ 

goals has been to improve the 

effectiveness of the catalyst in 

Fischer-Tropsch synthesis. The 

Fischer-Tropsch process takes syngas, 

a mixture of carbon monoxide 

and hydrogen, and converts it into 

hydrocarbon fuels. Syngas can come 

from a variety of materials, including 

natural gas, coal or biomass.

Recently, Argonne researchers also 

have begun to apply ALD technology 

to solid-state lighting, which uses 

light-emitting diodes, or LEDs. 

Unlike incandescent light bulbs, 

LEDs consume little electric power 

and do not burn out or overheat. They 

are illuminated by the movement of 

electrons in a semiconductor and are 

considered the most efficient light 

source in existence. LEDs can be 

These images illustrate how a combination of anodized aluminum oxide and atomic layer deposition 

provides precisely controlled, ultra-uniform porous support for new and well defined catalysts.

Nanoporous Separation Membrane 40 nm pores 10 nm pores

Before ALD Coating: After ALD Coating:

Practical on-board hydrogen 

storage is goal of new 

Argonne research project

Solving one of the biggest problems in 

commercialization of fuel-cell-powered 

automobiles is the goal of a new $1.88 

million research project on on-board 

hydrogen storage.

To be practical, researchers say, the 

hydrogen storage system must be able to 

hold enough of the fuel for a driving range 

of 300 miles before refilling; no current 

technology meets this goal within the 

constraints of allowable weight and volume 

for passenger cars.

The Argonne research will investigate 

nanostructured polymeric materials as 

hydrogen storage adsorbents. Developed 

through an earlier collaboration between 

Argonne and The University of Chicago, the 

new polymer adsorbent material has shown 

great promise in preliminary tests. The new 

project, funded by the U.S. Department of 

Energy, will seek further improvements in 

storage capacity and an in-depth understanding of hydrogen-polymer interactions.

Technique will open new vistas 

in microscopy 

Argonne Researchers Gary Wiederrecht and 

Stephen Gray, along with colleagues John 

Rogers at the University of Illinois and Renaud 

Bachelot at the University of Technology at 

Troyes have demonstrated a way to resolve 

infinitesimally small areas in highly scattering 

Innovation

environments and break through one of the 

most important barriers in optical microscopy.

Earlier advances in optical microscopy 

were limited by what was perceived to be a 

rigid boundary: When attempting to resolve 

an area smaller than approximately 250 

nanometers, or about half the wavelength of 

visible light, physicists were frustrated by the 

tendency of a sample to diffract, or scramble, 

the incident light.

Instead of shining using one laser beam 

on the sample, Wiederrecht and his team 

used a second beam to eliminate much of 

the unwanted scattering and diffraction that 

distorted the images obtained with the onebeam technique.

Argonne, Northwestern 

seek ANSER to solar energy 

challenges

Helping the world meet increasing energy 

needs through solar energy will be the goal of 

a new research center established by Argonne 

and Northwestern University.

The Argonne-Northwestern Solar Energy 

Research Center, or ANSER Center, will 

combine and expand the research interests of 

both institutions to address the grand scientific 

challenges posed by the need for economically 

viable solar energy use.

“Global energy needs will double by 2050 

and triple by 2100,” said Michael R. Wasielewski, 

Northwestern chemistry professor and director of 

the new center. “An increase in the use of solar 

energy is essential for meeting this need in an 

environmentally responsible manner.”

(Continued from page 1)

Bacteria

succeeded in dramatically increasing 

the concentration of microorganisms 

in tiny fluid drops and films. Unlike 

traditional centrifuging techniques, 

the new approach allows selective 

concentration of healthy cells,” said 

Andrey Sokolov, Ph.D. student from 

Illinois Institute of Technology and 

contributor to the research.

In addition to the development 

of the device used in the experiment, 

research findings uncovered the 

explanation for the long-standing 

fundamental questions on the properties 

of collective and organized motion in 

the systems of interacting self-moving 

objects. Besides swimming bacteria, 

other examples include bird flocks, fish 

schools, motor proteins in living cells, 

and even swarms of communicating 

nano-robots.

“We have presented experimental 

studies of collective bacterial swimming 

in thin fluid films where the dynamics 

are essentially two-dimensional and 

the concentration can be adjusted 

continuously,” explained Argonne’s Igor 

Aronson. “Our results provide strong 

evidence for the pure hydrodynamic 

origin of collective swimming, rather 

than chemotactic mechanisms of pattern 

formation when microorganisms just 

follow gradients of a certain chemical, 

such as nutrient, oxygen, or other.”

Detailed results of these findings 

have been published in Physical Review 

E and in Physical Review Letters.

Funding for this research was 

provided by the U.S. Department of 

Energy’s Office of Basic Energy Science.

Details of the instrument and 

animations are available online. n

www.anl.gov/Media_Center/

News/2007/news070416.html

Researchers at the ANSER Center will 

come from both Argonne and Northwestern, 

and will examine new economical ways to 

use sunlight to produce clean fuels, such 

as hydrogen, from water and to produce 

electricity directly from low-cost photovoltaic 

and thermoelectric systems.

New ‘1/f noise’ discovery 

promises to improve

semiconductor-based sensors

More sensitive sensors and detectors based 

on semiconductor electronics could result from 

new findings by researchers from the United 

States, Norway and Russia.

Their research has yielded a decisive 

step in identifying the origin of the universal 

“one-over-f” (1/f) noise phenomenon; “f” 

stands for “frequency.”

“One-over-f noise appears almost 

everywhere, from electronic devices and 

fatigue in materials to traffic on roads, the 

distribution of stars in galaxies and DNA

sequences,” said Valerii Vinokour (MSD). 

“Finding the common origin of one-overf noise in its many forms is one of the 

grand challenges of materials physics. Our 

theory establishes the origin and lower 

limit to one-over-f noise in semiconductor 

electronics, helping to optimize detectors 

for commercial application.”

In nanomaterials, such as the tiny circuits 

in semiconductor electronics, the noise 

generated by the random motion of a single 

electron can be devastating, since there are so 

few electrons in the system.

found in many electronic devices, 

from digital displays to traffic lights. 

This research is funded by the U.S. 

Department of Energy to develop by 

2025 advanced solid-state lighting 

technologies that, compared to 

conventional lighting technologies, 

are much more energy efficient, longer 

lasting and cost-competitive.

In cooperation with Northwestern 

University, Argonne researchers are 

also fabricating highly efficient solar 

cells for converting sunlight into 

electricity. The researchers aim to 

eventually commercialize these novel 

and efficient solar cells. Because no 

pure, costly silicon is involved in the 

fabrication process — as it generally 

is with conventional solar cells — the 

researchers hope to produce electricity 

at a much lower cost. n
manufacturers placing ceramic 

catalytic reactors in the exhaust 

pipes, where they will convert 

NOx emissions into nitrogen,” said 

Marshall. Nitrogen, or N2, is a 

harmless gas that makes up more than 

80 percent of the Earth’s atmosphere.

“Our most promising catalyst for 

diesel engines,” Marshall said, “is 

Cu-ZSM-5 with an external coating 

of cerium oxide.” Cu-ZSM-5 is a 

zeolite with copper ions attached 

within its micropore structure. 

Zeolites are common catalysts in the 

petroleum industry.

Those working previously with 

Cu-ZSM-5 and similar catalysts, he 

said, found that they performed poorly 

at removing NOx from diesel exhaust. 

They require temperatures higher than 

normal diesel exhaust temperatures and 

don’t work well in the presence of water 

vapor, which is almost always found in 

engine exhausts.

With the help of the Advanced 

Photon Source at Argonne to analyze 

the structure and performance of various 

catalysts, Marshall’s group at Argonne 

developed an additive that allows 

Cu-ZSM-5 and similar catalysts to 

overcome these difficulties.

“Our new cerium-oxide additive,” 

Marshall said, “is the breakthrough 

that makes it work. When it’s 

combined with Cu-ZSM-5, the 

resulting catalyst works at normal 

FALL 2007 / ARGONNE UPDATE 3

Argonne “...for a brighter future”

Since 2001, an aggressive employee 

safety program has placed Argonne 

National Laboratory among the leaders 

for safety in the U.S. Department of 

Energy’s laboratory system.

From 2001 to 2007, safety at 

Argonne has improved impressively. 

One Occupational Safety and Health 

Administration (OSHA) safety measure 

is improved by a factor of 4.6, another 

improved by a factor of 16:

• Argonne’s OSHA total recordable 

incident rate fell from 3.1 to 0.62, and

 • The Days Away, Restricted, or Transfer 

(DART) rate fell from 1.6 to 0.1.

This total recordable incident rate 

measures the annual number of recordable 

incidents an organization experiences 

per 100 employees. The DART rate 

measures the number of incidents per 100 

employees that results in lost or restricted 

work days or job transfer due to workrelated injuries or illness.

It gets better: “In April,” said Bob 

McCook, who oversees Argonne’s 

safety programs, “the laboratory 

achieved a safety milestone of more 

than 3 million consecutive work hours 

— the equivalent of about six months 

— without an employee injury that 

resulted in days away from work.”

McCook, Director of Argonne’s Office 

of Environment, Safety, and Health/Quality Assurance Oversight, credits the steady 

improvement to the involvement of senior 

Argonne management. “A sound safety 

culture,” he said, “always comes from employees genuinely believing that management truly cares about safety. Many places 

might develop programs and processes 

to show that management is engaged in 

safety, but here, management really is 

engaged. It’s not a separate process.”

McCook meets weekly with Argonne 

Director Robert Rosner’s Safety Council 

to discuss environment-, safety-, and 

health-related issues. In addition to 

Rosner and McCook, the Director’s 

Safety Council includes the two seniormost members of Argonne’s Directorate, 

the four associate laboratory directors 

who guide Argonne’s research programs, 

the director of Argonne’s Medical 

Department and a representative from the 

University of Chicago.

 In addition, safety is always the first 

agenda item at weekly meetings of the 

Management Council, which comprises 

Argonne’s highest level directors of 

research and operations. 

The UChicago Argonne, LLC, 

Board of Governors for Argonne is also 

deeply involved in overseeing safety 

at Argonne. The board’s Environment, 

Safety and Health Committee receives 

face-to-face reports quarterly from 

senior Argonne management and 

closely guides the laboratory’s safety 

policies and programs. The committee 

members are safety leaders from major 

companies, universities, and research 

organizations around the nation. n

(Continued from page 1)

exhaust temperatures and is actually 

more effective with water vapor 

than without it. With a lean fuel-air 

mixture, it removes as much as 95 to 

100 percent of NOx emissions.”

Marshall says the Argonne catalyst 

has been tested and performed well 

with a number of diesel and dieseltype fuels, including standard diesel, 

synthetic diesel, bio-diesel and JP8, 

which is a jet fuel preferred by the 

military. The next step is to subject 

the catalyst to engine testing. This will 

take place soon at Argonne’s Diesel 

Engine Test Facility.

Marshall and his colleagues are 

also working with the Fuel Cell 

Research Group in Argonne’s Chemical 

Engineering Division. Using a 

reformer developed by this group could 

provide better fuel for the catalyst, 

said Marshall. “Our catalyst already 

works well, but it would work even 

better with the smaller hydrocarbons 

produced by a reformer. Collaborations 

like this and access to Argonne’s 

unique facilities allow us to work 

together on projects in a way that 

couldn’t be done anywhere else.” 

Initial research on the ceriumoxide catalyst was funded by the 

U.S. Department of Energy’s Office 

of Energy Efficiency and Renewable 

Energy. The catalyst was developed for 

chemical plant emissions under a joint 

research agreement with BP. n

Catalyst

Jared Sagoff

High-energy physics, teamwork and 

good old-fashioned stick-to-it-iveness 

supplanted reading, writing and 

arithmetic as the course of study for a 

crew of local high school students who 

engaged in a week-long study of cosmic 

rays at Argonne in June.

Eleven students from six area 

high schools — Glenbrook North, 

Glenbrook South, Ida Crown Jewish 

Academy, Chicagoland Jewish, Alan 

Shepard and Plainfield-Central Campus 

— participated in QuarkNet, a particle 

physics outreach program based out of 

Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory 

that attempts to link mentors at 

universities and national labs throughout 

the country with high school students 

who have limited physics backgrounds. 

“The idea was to have our students 

do some of their own unique research 

and to share that on the Web with 

students and teachers at other schools,” 

said Carol Baker, curriculum director 

for Community High School District 

218. “Having the kids here means that 

they’re learning how do to science from 

the ground up, and building a network 

of students who will all know each other 

and work together.”

During the week of June 22, the 

students appropriated the stage of the 

Building 362 Auditorium to assemble 

scintillators, photomultiplier tubes and 

GPS devices into cosmic-ray detectors. 

Cosmic rays penetrated the auditorium 

Students turn 362 Auditorium into cosmicray observatory

Ilan Cohn and Carol Baker, at left, take cosmicray data in the Building 362 Auditorium. 

Students from several local high schools 

engaged in a week-long study of cosmic rays 

at Argonne in June.

and hit the scintillators; photomultiplier 

tubes converted the resulting flashes of 

light into an electronic pulse that in turn 

was sent to a computer. The students 

then performed either a flux study, 

which measured the rays over time, or 

a shower study, which looked for bursts 

of rays that can pepper many different 

locations almost simultaneously.

Aaron Weinberg, a junior at 

Chicagoland Jewish Academy, 

concurred with Baker’s assessment. 

“This is real science,” he said. “Kids 

are doing the research, and kids are 

collecting the data that scientists go 

and use to further science, which I 

think is appealing to every student. 

It’s a dream.” n

3.5

3.0

2.5

2.0

1.5

1.0

0.5

0.0

2000200120022003200420052006

2007 (est)

Rate per 200,000 hours worked

Days away, restricted or transferred

Total OSHA recordable case rate

Argonne among leaders in safety in lab system

‘Modern Marvels’ taps Argonne’s battery experts

A film crew from the Discovery Channel’s “Modern Marvels” program recently visited Argonne 

for an upcoming show focusing on batteries. They visited the Battery Test Facility and the 

Center for Transportation Research and interviewed several of Argonne’s battery experts, 

including Ira Bloom, shown here, Jim Miller, John Basco, Andy Jansen, Ted Bohn, Mike 

Duoba, Glenn Keller, and Neeraj Shidore. The show’s air date has not been determined.
World-renowned physicist

joins Argonne to lead proposal 

for exotic beam facility

World-renowned 

physicist Walter F. 

Henning is joining 

the scientific staff 

at Argonne to head 

up Argonne’s efforts 

to build a proposed 

exotic beam 

facility for nuclear 

physics research, which will revolutionize our 

understanding of nuclei, the core of matter and 

the fuel of stars. Henning is presently professor 

of physics at the University of Frankfurt and 

director of GSI Darmstadt, Germany’s premier 

nuclear physics research facility. He is a Fellow 

of the American Physical Society and the winner 

of the 2004 Hessian Order of Merit.

The Department of Energy has proposed 

to build an exotic beam facility for the next 

generation of nuclear physics research, and 

Argonne is one of the sites competing for that 

facility. A recent National Academy of Sciences 

report stressed the scientific opportunities that 

exist with exotic beams. This new facility would 

provide physicists with energetic, high-quality 

beams of literally thousands of isotopes of 

elements in the periodic table, including a great 

many that have never before been observed 

on earth.

“This facility is an important project with 

great potential for discovery,” Henning said. 

“Argonne provides for synergies and unique 

technical expertise from other programs and 

from its technical infrastructure. And, last but 

not least, the existing nuclear accelerator 

9700

South Cass Avenue

Argonne, Illinois 60439

Non-Profit 

Organization

U.S. Postage Paid

LEMONT, IL

PERMIT #87

Honors

at Argonne provides for an effective base 

to realize science use of the rare isotopes 

produced from the very beginning. I believe 

that these conditions provide an excellent basis 

for a successful Argonne proposal.”

Jaydeep Bardhan receives 

Howes Scholar Award in 

computational science

Argonne’s Jaydeep 

Bardhan (MCS) 

has been named 

a Frederick A. 

Howes Scholar in 

Computational Science 

for 2007. The award 

was established 

to honor the late 

Frederick Anthony Howes, who managed the 

applied Mathematical Science Program in the 

U.S. Department of Energy during the 1990s 

and oversaw the DOE Computational Science 

Graduate Fellowship (CSGF) program. Only 

CSGF fellows are eligible for this prestigious 

award, and only one or two are named each year.

Bardhan was a CSGF fellow from 2002 

to 2006 and spent a summer at Argonne in 

2003 under that program. He received his 

Ph.D. in electrical engineering and computer 

science from the Massachusetts Institute 

of Technology in 2006. He is currently a 

Wilkinson Fellow at Argonne.

Bardhan’s research focuses on 

biomolecular modeling, an emerging area that 

demands expertise in engineering, numerical 

methods, biology and high-performance 

computing. Among his accomplishments 

4 ARGONNE UPDATE / FALL 2007

are the development of a novel technique for 

analyzing the interactions between protein 

molecules and the formulation of new 

approaches for determining optimal molecular 

targets for drug design.

Bardhan was one of two former CSGF

fellows presented with the Howes Scholar 

award at the 2007 CSGF Annual Fellows’ 

Conference in Washington, D.C., June 19-21.

Argonne scientist wins first-ever 

Young Scientist Prize for Atomic, 

Molecular and Optical Physics

Robin Santra has 

been selected as the 

winner of the first 

2007 International 

Union of Pure and 

Applied Physics (IUPAP) Young 

Scientist Prize for 

Atomic, Molecular 

and Optical Physics. Santra is an assistant 

physicist in Argonne’s Chemistry Division. He 

has collaborated on the discovery of a holeorbital alignment in atomic ions generated 

in the focus of a strong laser field. He has 

also contributed to 12 scientific papers and 

been published in Physical Review Letters 

on five different occasions. Most recently, his 

theoretical work has uncovered electromagnetically induced transparency for X-rays, 

suggesting a simple switch to produce ultrafast X-rays. He is currently investigating other 

ways of influencing X-ray absorption with 

strong lasers and is also interested in nonlinear X-ray science with free electron lasers. Update

FALL 2007 The Community 

Newsletter of 

Argonne 

National 

Laboratory

Santra

Bardhan

Argonne Nation

al Labor

atory is m

anaged by UChicago 

argonne, ll

c for the u.s. dep

artment of energy

Office of

Science U.S. DEPARTMENT OF ENERGY

A group of 20 students in the 

National Science Foundation’s 

Research Experiences for 

Undergraduates (REU) program 

at Notre Dame University were 

recently treated to an extensive tour 

of Argonne’s Center for Nanoscale 

Materials. The day’s events included 

a two-hour in-depth nanofabrication 

experience in the cleanroom facility 

under the enthusiastic guidance of 

staff scientist Leo Ocola (CNM). 

Scientific program overviews were 

given by Seth Darling (CNM) on 

self-assembly and scanning probe 

microscopy, and by Dave Gosztola 

(CNM) on nanophotonics; postdoc 

Ligang Zhang (CHM) described her 

nanobio interface research project. 

Finally, Robert Winarski and Martin 

Holt of the CNM’s X-ray Microscopy 

group explained the X-ray nanoprobe 

beamline, located at Sector 26 of the 

Advanced Photon Source, including a 

tour of their experimental and optical 

hutches. The students’ visit was led 

by Marya Lieberman and Kristy 

DiVittorio of Notre Dame. n

Notre Dame 

students tour CNM

Henning

Fuel Cell Sprin

t

Chicago area middle school students raced hydrogen-fueled model cars at the 17th annual model car competition at Chicago’s 

Museum of 

Science and Industry. 

The competition is 

part of the Chicago 

Regional 

Science Bowl sponsored by the 

U.

S. Department of Energy, Argonne, 

CNH Corporation and 

the Chicago 

Section of the 

Society of Automotive Engineers. 

Each team started with a standardized kit that includes an 

electrical motor powered by a fuel cell; the rest of the car design and components are limited only by their imaginations. 

The 

car competition inspires students to use applied skills to meet technical challenges comparable to those faced by scientists and engineers.