A Different Laboratory Tale: Fifty Years of Mössbauer Spectroscopy

Authors(s):Catherine Westfall Publication:Physics in Perspective Publication Date:September 2005 Publisher: Argonne National Laboratory Citation:Physics in Perspective 8(2):189-213 Link:https://www.researchgate.net/publication/226861096_A_Different_Laboratory_Tale_…

I explore the fifty-year development of Mössbauer spectroscopy by focusing on three episodes in its development at Argonne National Laboratory: work by nuclear physicists using radioactive sources in the early 1960s, work by solid-state physicists using radioactive resources from the mid- 1960s through the 1970s,and work by solid-state physicists using the Advanced Photon Source from the 1980s to 2005. These episodes show how knowledge about the properties of matter was produced in a national-laboratory context and highlights the web of connections that allow national laboratory scientists working at a variety of scales to produce both technological and scientific innovations.