Laboratory for Micro and Nanotechnology (LMN)

In a collaboration within the network of the Swiss Nanoscience Institute, the formation of free-standing molecular monolayers using self-assembly processes has been demonstrated. The results of the study have been published in the February 2019 issue of Science Advances.

The research group of Prof. T.A. Jung at the University of Basel has reported on a new method that allows the physical state of just a few atoms or molecules within a network to be controlled.

Our experiments, published in the September issue of Structural Dynamics, demonstrate the feasibility of time-resolved pump-multiprobe X-ray diffraction experiments on protein crystals using a split-and-delay setup which was temporarily installed at the LCLS X-ray Free Electron Laser.

At this year's annual meeting of the Swiss Nanoscience Institute (SNI) Jens Gobrecht, the former Head of LMN, received the SNI Honorary Membership.

Our image of a diamond structure was published on the cover page of the September 2018 issue of the journal "Materials Today". The corresponding paper reports on the nano-frabrication of micro-optical elements in diamond.

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.