International Cooperation

On September 25, 2007 in Ottawa, an agreement was signed by the Government of India with the Canadian Light Source (CLS) and the Univ. of Saskatchewan to promote cooperation between India and Canadian researchers in synchrotron science. The agreement opens the way to explore joint projects including materials research, earth and environmental sciences, and biomedical and life sciences. Other opportunities may see Indian researchers traveling to the CLS as customers to use the facility, as well as to learn about their operation and design of experimental equipment. For the full press release please go to www.lightsource.ca/media/media_release_20070925.php.
A Canadian/German team is developing soft X-ray spectroscopy as a new tool for the investigation of one of the key areas of soil science: the chemistry of nitrogen. Collaborators from the Universities of Saskatchewan (Fran Walley) and Rostock (Peter Leinweber) have combined to produce the necessary first step, a reference fingerprint library to determine the nature of unknown nitrogen in environmental materials (see Leinweber et al. 2007, journals.iucr.org/s/issues/2007/06/00/issconts.html). This is part of the commitment of the CLS to accommodate 'dirty' real-world samples that has also brought researchers from the USA and Australia to Saskatoon.