Physical Sciences in NFDI Colloquium

Communicating X-rays Spectroscopy Data: Data formats for better, larger, XAS Databases

by Matthew Newville from the Center for Advanced Radiation Sources, The University of Chicago, Chicago, IL, USA

X-ray Absorption Spectroscopy (XAS) gives unique information about the chemical state of materials. High-quality XAS data requires well-prepared samples and access to valuable synchrotron beamlines or state-of-the-art laboratory sources, XAS data is a rare and valuable commodity. Well-maintained databases of XAS spectra on both standard reference materials and samples then become important for the synchrotron and scientific communities, both for individual researchers and for automated machine-learning methods. Enabling the automated use of spectral libraries requires curated and documented formats and metadata fields for the spectral data. He will present existing XAS spectral libraries and formats, and report on progress from a Working Group from the XAFS community towards standardizing metadata and defining specifications for both plain text and NeXuS/HDF5 formats for XAS data.

If you are interested please join us online or in person in Karlsruhe. We are exited about an informative valentines day!