Keuka College

As research becomes more interdisciplinary, researchers develop new methodologies and technologies for novel experiments that bridge fields. FlumeX's design features a standard experimental chamber that can be expanded into different configurations, allowing for cross-disciplinary experiments between the fields of fluid dynamics, chemical oceanography, and biology. An open-ended, flow-through configuration is ideal for simulating environments where water is constantly flushed, capable of simulating oceanic environments. A fully enclosed, recirculating configuration is ideal for particle image velocimetry experiments, standard for fluid dynamics. FlumeX is designed to allow for husbandry of sessile organisms, including corals, in tandem with chemical and physical measurements. FlumeX allows for flexibility in experimental design and comparable environments between recirculating and flow-through configurations. It is designed with low-cost, readily available materials, making it easy to build and produce en masse for replicate testing.

We demonstrate that the possibility of monitoring relative photoionization cross sections over a large photon energy range allows us to study and disentangle shake processes and intramolecular inelastic scattering effects. In this gas-phase study, relative intensities of the carbon 1s photoelectron lines from chemically inequivalent carbon atoms in the same molecule have been measured as a function of the incident photon energy in the range of 300-6000 eV. We present relative cross sections for the chemically shifted carbon 1s lines in the photoelectron spectra of ethyl trifluoroacetate (the "ESCA" molecule). The results are compared with those of methyl trifluoroacetate and S-ethyl trifluorothioacetate as well as a series of chloro-substituted ethanes and 2-butyne. In the soft X-ray energy range, the cross sections show an extended X-ray absorption fine structure type of wiggles, as was previously observed for a series of chloroethanes. The oscillations are damped in the hard X-ray energy range, but deviations of cross-section ratios from stoichiometry persist, even at high energies. The current findings are supported by theoretical calculations based on a multiple scattering model. The use of soft and tender X-rays provides a more complete picture of the dominant processes accompanying photoionization. Such processes reduce the main photoelectron line intensities by 20-60%. Using both energy ranges enabled us to discern the process of intramolecular inelastic scattering of the outgoing electron, whose significance is otherwise difficult to assess for isolated molecules. This effect relates to the notion of the inelastic mean free path commonly used in photoemission studies of clusters and condensed matter.