The 8th Annual Meeting of ORSO

Friday 24 Jul 2026, 08:50 → 18:00 America/Chicago

Auditorium (APS, Argonne National Lab)

The eigth annual meeting of the Open Reflectometry Standards Organisation.

The purpose of the meeting is for ORSO administration and to discuss topics of interest to the ORSO community. This year the meeting will take place as a satellite of SXNS18 so physical attendance will require registration at that conference. We will, however, also offer partial participation with free remote access, for which you can register here.

The program will consist of some scientific and technical talks together with break-out discussions led by chairs of each of the working groups.

There will also be an AGM for ORSO to discuss administrative issues and elect new chairs for the working groups.

Further details on the proposed agenda can be found here.

We thank ESS and ILL for financial support for this meeting

Plenary: Welcome & Introduction

1 Welcome

Speaker: Thomas Arnold (European Spallation Source ERIC)

2 Combining specular and off-specular scattering for 3D neutron reflectometry

Speaker: Philipp Gutfreund (ILL)

3 Grazing incidence diffuse scattering from liquid surfaces: faster and better than reflectometry?

Speaker: Chen Shen (Deutsches Elektronen-Synchrotron DESY)

4 Rare earth element coordination at liquid interfaces

Speaker: Mark Schlossman (University of Illinois Chicago)

5 Discussion

10:20 Coffee break

Plenary: Keynote talks

6 An update on DAPHNE4NFDI

Speaker: Frank Schreiber

7 Summary of Sample Environment Working Group forums

Speaker: Sophie Ayscough (ILL)

8 Discussion

12:00 Lunch

Plenary: Plenary 2

9 The Slow Road to QIKR

Speaker: John Ankner (Oak Ridge National Laboratory)

10 Demonstration of Multi-Incident-angle Neutron Reflectometry (MI-NR) with Focusing Optics at SOFIA

Speaker: Masako Yamada (J-Parc)

11 Polarized resonant soft X-ray reflectivity for depth-profiling composition and molecular orientation in soft materials.

Thin films composed of soft matter often exhibit heterogeneities in composition and molecular orientation distributed throughout the film’s depth. This morphology can dramatically influence a material’s function such as chain orientation in semiconducting polymers that can introduce anisotropic optoelectronic properties. Characterizing such stratification is challenging as few experimental techniques simultaneously resolve depth-dependent composition and molecular orientation, particularly in semi-crystalline or amorphous materials. Resonant soft X-ray reflectivity (RSOXR) is an experimental technique that combines the chemical sensitivity of near-edge X-ray absorption fine structure (NEXAFS) spectroscopy with the depth-profiling capabilities of X-ray reflectivity. Soft X-rays leverage intrinsic chemical contrast near elemental absorption edges relevant for soft matter, including carbon (284 eV), nitrogen (410 eV), and oxygen (543 eV). The application of polarized X-rays extends this capability, providing sensitivity to the alignment of NEXAFS dipoles which directly relates to the orientation of molecules under investigation. This presentation will provide an overview of RSOXR capabilities and ongoing research for studying soft matter at the Advanced Light Source (ALS). Experimental requirements and data analysis strategies will be discussed, including differences from hard X-ray or neutron reflectivity. This will include a brief introduction to our current polarized reflectivity modeling software, pypxr, and future plans to develop a native hyperspectral modeling platform. Challenges for operating in this X-ray regime will be addressed alongside opportunities and use cases in soft matter research.

Speaker: Thomas J. Ferron (Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory)

12 The Last Three Years on the Liquids Reflectometer at SNS

Speaker: Erik Watkins (ORNL)

14:40 Coffee break

Plenary: ORSO AGM

13 Reproducibility best practice

14 Annual General Meeting

Reports from the Working Groups
Election of 5 Chairs for a 4 year term

Speaker: Thomas Arnold (European Spallation Source ERIC)

15 AI and ORSO Talks (to be confirmed)

16 Dicussion on an AI / Machine Learning Working Group