This month Jen had the exciting opportunity to attend the 2021 HERCULES school, which for the first time ever was held completely online. The HERCULES school is a 5 week training course, providing a broad overview of X-ray, neutron and FEL techniques. As well as lectures, there is also an opportunity to perform experiments at central facilities, though this year they had to take place remotely! Some particular highlights for Jen were the experiments at SLS on the microXAS and ADRESS beamlines where she used X-ray fluorescence to study solid-oxide fuel cells and XAS to explore smartphone interfaces respectively, and the single crystal diffraction experiment on D23 at ILL. As usual, there was a “trip” to another facility outside Grenoble, for Jen this took her to PSI, and we are pleased to say that as Jen came second in the PSI quiz she will be receiving a PSI branded Swiss army knife in the post!
All together, it was a great experience and Jen certainly learnt a lot, its just sad that it couldn’t happen in real life. Big thanks to all the lecturers and instructors, particularly Marc De Boissieu, Béatrice Grenier and Giorgio Schiro for organising the school!
Clark Group 