RIKEN SPring-8 (the Super Photon ring-8 GeV) is a world-leading research facility, which provides powerful synchrotron radiation for scientific and industrial research. The Center also operates SACLA, a new X-ray Free Electron Laser for next generation synchrotron radiation. Volker Rose followed an invitation of Prof. Akira Saito to visit RIKEN SPring-8 from October 18-20, 2012. Akira Saito, who holds a joint appointment between Osaka University and RIKEN SPring-8, is the principal investigator of the synchrotron x-ray scanning tunneling microscopy (SXSTM) project in Japan. Similar to the project at the Advanced Photon Source, his research aims to improve the spatial resolution of today’s x-ray microscopes down to the atomic scale. In a meeting together with the Director of RIKEN SPring-8, Dr. Tetsuya Ishikawa, the researchers laid ground for an international collaboration.

During the research visit Volker Rose presented a Seminar at RIKEN entitled “High-resolution chemical mapping: From the Hard X-ray Nanoprobe (HXN) to a novel Synchrotron X-ray Scanning Tunneling Microscope (SXSTM)”.