Xuemei May Cheng, Associate Professor of Physics, led her team, including graduate students Xiao Wang, Le Yu, undergraduate student Zhongying Yan, and collaborators from University of Texas at Arlington and Argonne National Laboratory, to study gold nanoparticle synthesis using high-resolution hard x-ray microprobes at the Advanced Photon Source (APS) of Argonne National Laboratory November 16-22, 2015. Their research aims to obtain a fundamental understanding of a new nanoparticle synthesis method and is funded by the National Science Foundation.