In the image, an ultrashort laser pulse triggers collective excitations in an antiferromagnetic material, forming a wave.
A study has revealed that magnons are surprisingly long-lived – an important insight for designing spintronic materials in the future. In the image, an ultrashort laser pulse triggers collective excitations in an antiferromagnetic material, forming a wave. A new X-ray technique at SwissFEL allowed researchers to follow how these collective excitations, such as magnons, evolve. © Paul Scherrer Institute PSI/Hiroki Ueda
19.10.2026
•Future Technologies
•8 min

X-rays show how quasiparticles interact in solids

Thanks to a new experimental technique at SwissFEL, researchers uncover the interplay between electronic, magnetic, and lattice excitations in a solid.

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Hero Brennstäbe
13.10.2026
•Energy and Climate
•10 min

New method for inspecting fuel rods

PSI researchers have successfully used a new method to analyse the cladding tubes of spent fuel rods from nuclear reactors at very high resolution for the first time. They found that the cladding tubes remained leak-tight.

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nobelpreis
06.10.2026
•Health Innovation
•6 min

Nobel Prize meets PSI research

This year’s Nobel Prize in Medicine honours optogenetics: this method uses light to selectively control processes in cells. Researchers at PSI are advancing the field further.

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The undulator beamline at SwissFEL
The undulator beamline at SwissFEL, where technological developments have enabled scientists to generate X-ray pulses with wavelengths below one Angstrom using much lower machine energies than are typically required. © Paul Scherrer Institute PSI/Markus Fischer
18.09.2026
•Large research facilities
•3 min

Quality over energy in X-ray production

High-quality electron beams pave the way for more compact and affordable X-ray free-electron lasers.

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The intense beams of X-ray light at the user facilities operated by the PSI Center for Photon Science shed light on the smallest structures of matter. 

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B.B. King, Montreux Jazz Festival, 1980 © Georges Braunschweig
•Large research facilities

A B.B. King recording brings PSI scientists and tape preservation experts together to rethink magnetic tape degradation

Materials research

PSI researchers have shown that several apparently different forms of magnetic tape degradation share the same underlying chemical origin but fail for different microscopic reasons – resolving a preservation puzzle first raised by an unplayable B.B. King recording from the Claude Nobs Collection of the Montreux Jazz Festival.

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