PHOTON SCIENCE

Before you start writing your proposal, you should contact the beamline scientists and check with them if your experiment can be done at your desired beamline, and if there might be another beamline, which will be better suited. There are many experiments which are just not feasible at all at DESY!

P64 offers several advanced techniques:
- QEXAFS on the second to sub-second time-scale
- high-resolution X-ray emission spectroscopy (HR-XES)
- investigation of thin films and diluted materials

If you want to apply for QEXAFS-time, you have to include the time-scale for one XANES/EXAFS scan in your proposal.
Note: A time-scale of minutes, which we reach in conventional scans, is not QEXAFS!

If you want to apply for HR-XES-time, you have to provide information on the fluorescence lines which you want to study, and also on the edges, if you plan to measure Resonant X-Ray Emission Spectra.

If you want to investigate a thin film or a diluted system, you have to provide information on the thickness of the film and the substrate, or the concentration of the element under investigation and the matrix. There is a huge difference between 500ppm of Fe in a carbon-like matrix and 500ppm of Fe in a Mn-Co matrix! I strongly recommend to use XMI-MSIM in order to simulate fluorescence spectra for such samples in order to estimate if it is possible to measure XAFS at P64. Some samples are just pathological cases, which cannot be investigated by EXAFS.

If you plan to measure EXAFS in transmission mode of pellets, you should NOT apply for beamtime at P64. There are many other beamlines around the world which are better suited for such measurements. High flux is not necessary for high-quality data!

There are more general information at the Photon-Science Web-pages for users who want to write a proposal: https://photon-science.desy.de/users_area/user_guide/write_a_proposal/index_eng.html

The proposal has several sections:

1. Scientific background
2. Motivation for the proposal
3. Own previous work at PETRA III
4. Experimental plan
     a) Justification of beamline requested
      b) Justification of beamtime requested
      c) samples & safety related issues
      d) technical information (if applicable)
5. Results expected and their impact
6. References related to the proposal scientific text

You have to use the template! If you do not use the template, the reviewers will reduce the score of your proposal. They are quite generous, since some funding agencies reject proposals if the template is not used.

Your figures should not have the size of a stamp, axes have to be labelled correctly, and a figure caption has to be included.

Try to not repeat yourself! You have just two pages, and relevant information is very important. We, as beamline-scientists, don't want to read a novel without relevant information. We want to get information on details to your Experimental Plan.