News & Scientific Highlights

Researchers from the University of Oxford have imaged, through the use of the soft X-ray microscopy capabilities at the Swiss Light Source, spatially reconfigurable antiferromagnetic states in topologically rich free-standing nanomembranes

One of the challenges in modern research on the fabrication of non-fullerene acceptor based organic solar cells is the availability of very efficient hole transport layers (HTLs). A new approach that avoids mutual solubility issues is to deposit the HTL from a suspension of doped organic nanoparticles. Surface-sensitive TEY-STXM measurements at the PolLux beamline characterised the homogeneity of the dopant in the nanoparticles and develop efficient nanoparticle HTL materials for organic solar cells.

Dr. Tim A. Butcher from the Microspectroscopy group was awarded the first prize in the "Art in Magnetism" competition of the JEMS 2023 conference with his contribution "Biffo", obtained from a ptychography image of a BiFeO3 nanoplate.

From light-years to nanometers: by repurposing an algorithm originally developed for the investigation of oscillatory dynamics in astronomical objects, scientists have been able to image non-locked dynamical processes at the nanosecond and nanometer scale.

Magnetic skyrmions stabilized in synthetic antiferromagnets hold promise as nanoscale information carriers in novel non-volatile magnetic memory designs. In this work, scientists in a worldwide collaborative effort have demonstrated the electrically-induced nucleation of magnetic skyrmions in synthetic antiferromagnets, which is a vital stepping stone towards the applicability of these magnetic textures in devices.

Scientists have demonstrated, through magnetic X-ray microscopy, that magnetic skyrmions stabilized in ferrimagnetic heterostructures can be displaced by electrical currents at high velocities, and exhibit low deflection angles, proving that ferrimagnetic skyrmions are good candidates for fast skyrmionic devices.

Aerosols in the atmosphere react to incident sunlight. This light is amplified in the interior of the aerosol droplets and particles, accelerating reactions. ETH and PSI researchers have now been able to demonstrate and quantify this effect and recommend factoring it into future climate models.

Combining time-resolved soft X-ray STXM imaging with magnetic laminography, researchers were able to investigate magnetization dynamics in a ferromagnetic microstructure resolved in all three spatial dimensions and in time. Thanks to the possibility of freely selecting the frequency of the excitation applied to the magnetic element, this technique opens the possibility to investigate resonant magneto-dynamical processes, such as e.g. magnetic vortex core gyration and switching, and spinwave emission.

Scientists have used state-of-the-art 3D printing and microscopy to provide a new glimpse of what happens when taking magnets to three-dimensions on the nanoscale – 1000 times smaller than a human hair.

A collaboration of scientists from the ETH Zürich and the Paul Scherrer Institute successfully demonstrated the all-electric operation of a magnetic domain-wall based NAND logic gate, paving the way towards the development of logic applications beyond the conventional metal-oxide semiconductor technology. The work has been published in the journal Nature.

In this work, published on the front cover page of Advanced Materials, an international collaboration of Italian, American, and Swiss scientists demonstrated a novel concept for the generation and manipulation of spin waves, paving the way towards the development of magnonic nano-processors.

Can a skyrmion-based device be used to read a handwritten text? In this work, an international scientist collaboration led by the Korea Institute of Technology and the IBM Watson research center could provide a first answer to this question by fabricating a proof-of-principle single-neuron artificial neural network, using X-ray magnetic microscopy at the Swiss Light Source to investigate its performances.

Employing a tailored multilayered magnetic film, optimized for the zero-field stabilization of magnetic skyrmions, researchers have investigated the influence of the skyrmion diameter on its current-induced sideways motion, uncovering mechanisms that allow for this topological property to be controlled.

3D imaging using synchrotron radiation is a widely used tool that allows access to the inner structure of complex objects. An international and interdisciplinary consortium of scientists from the Swiss Light Source (PolLux and cSAXs), the Friedrich-Alexander-Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg, and the University of Cambridge developed the new 3D imaging technique of Soft X-ray Laminography (SoXL). SoXL allows for the investigation of thin and extended samples while taking advantage of the characteristic absorption contrast mechanisms in the soft X-ray range, providing 3D information with nm spatial resolution.

Researchers in a joint collaboration between the PolLux endstation of the Swiss Light Source and the University of Leeds have achieved the reliable and reproducible electrical nucleation of magnetic skyrmions from a nano-engineered point contact structure, investigating the physical mechanisms driving the nucleation process.

Scientists have just nucleated ice in an X-ray microscope for the first time and they created chemical maps of those responsible.

In the week of April 1-5 PSI welcomes 20 PhD students and postdocs taking part in the European HERCULES 2019 school on Neutron and Synchrotron Radiation. They will attend lectures and perform two days of practical courses at several beam lines of the Swiss Light Source.

Magnetic domain walls can be reliably displaced by electrical currents, allowing for the fabrication of retentive magnetic memory elements without mechanically moving parts, such as e.g. the magnetic racetrack memory. Researchers in a joint collaboration between the PolLux endstation of the Swiss Light Source and the University of Leeds were able to investigate the dynamics of magnetic domain wall motion with a sub-ns time step, providing a substantial step forward towards the unraveling of the physical processes behind the current- and magnetic field-induced motion of magnetic domains.

The reliable electrical detection of magnetic skyrmions is of fundamental importance for the application of such topological magnetic quasi-particles for data storage devices. Researchers in a joint collaboration between the University of Leeds and the PolLux endstation have investigated the electrical detection of isolated magnetic skyrmions in applications-relevant nanostructured devices, observing the presence of a strong skyrmion-dependent contribution to the Hall resistivity.

The writing and deletion of magnetic Skyrmions is a fundamental step towards the fabrication of memory devices based on this promising spin configuration. Researchers at the Korea Institute of Technology have demonstrated the writing and deleting of isolated magnetic Skyrmions at room temperature in ferrimagnetic multilayer superlattice stacks using electrical currents.

The spot size of a Fresnel Zone Plate lens is mainly determined by the zone widths of its outermost zone. It is therefore essential to fabricate zone plates with structures as small as possible for high-resolution X-ray microscopy. Researchers at the Laboratory for Micro- and Nanotechnology at the PSI have now developed Fresnel zone plates with zone widths well below 10 nm, down to 6.4 nm. These lenses are capable of pushing resolution in X-ray microscopy to the single-digit regime.

In the week of March 18-23 PSI welcomes 20 PhD students and postdocs taking part in the HERCULES 2018 school on Neutron and Synchrotron Radiation. They will attend lectures and perform two days of practical courses at several beam lines of the Swiss Light Source.

Current-induced spin-orbit torques hold a great potential for manipulation of magnetization at ultrafast timescales. Researchers at ETH Zürich have demonstrated, using time-resolved STXM imaging at the Swiss Light Source, the influence of spin-orbit torques on the switching behaviour of Pt/Co/AlO_x nanostructured elements.

Metal nanostructures can be fabricated by irradiation of suitable metal organic precursor molecules with a focused X-ray beam. This novel techniques offer the advantage of energy-selective deposition by switching of the incident photon energy due to the non-linear photon absorption cross-section of the precursor molecules for resonant excitation.

The use of spin-wave signals in future information processing devices can substantially reduce power consumption over present charge current based technologies. As part of an international research venture, scientists at PSI now introduced a concept to generate spin waves with nanoscale wavelengths exploiting the driven dynamics of magnetic vortex cores in magnetic heterostructures.

Vortices are fundamental magnetic topological structures characterized by a curling magnetization around a highly stable nanometric core.