With its globally unique research infrastructure, PSI offers unrivalled opportunities for cutting-edge national and international research.
The main areas of research at PSI
Recent highlights from our research
Pollutants often originate in the air
In the CLOUD experiment at CERN, PSI researchers have measured with unprecedented precision how harmful organic air pollutants are formed and dispersed.
A superlative milestone
PSI spin-off Araris Biotech AG achieves valuation at unicorn-level!
How botox enters our cells
Researchers at PSI have identified structural changes of the bacterial neurotoxin botox that are important for its uptake into nerve cells. This finding could allow a more targeted use of botox in medicine.
Interested in doing research at PSI? Do you want to use our infrastructure for cutting-edge research?
Find out more about our large-scale research facilities and other research centres.
Research Centers & Labs
Our research and service centres conduct internationally recognised cutting-edge research in the natural and engineering sciences and make highly complex large research facilities available to science and industry for their own research projects.
Scientific Highlights from our Centers
Water gets in shape for VUV absorption
Nanometre‑thin, free‑flowing liquid sheets now let Swiss Light Source users record pristine VUV absorption spectra of water, and soon any solvent.
Texture analysis implementation at the neutron strain diffractometer POLDI
This study presents the implementation of a novel data analysis methodology to perform spatially resolved crystallographic texture analyses in bulk specimens at POLDI, the pulsed frame overlap diffractometer at SINQ, Paul Scherrer Institute. The method is based on the determination of several incomplete pole figures. To increase the angular resolution, the POLDI diffraction bank is split into several virtual units of smaller angular coverage. The diffraction data of each virtual unit can then be analyzed individually and used to create experimental pole figures from the Euler angles of the explored sample orientations. Additionally, to help the analyses, a new numerical tool was developed and implemented at POLDI to calculate neutron flight path of each virtual detector as a function of sample size, geometry, and orientation. Leveraging on the SALOME platform’s Geom module (open-source CAD modeler), the tool allows inserting CAD objects into a virtual detailed PODI geometry. This allows to automate sample positioning and orientation within the instrument frame and computes flight path intersections. It serves two main purposes: enhancing texture analysis through precise path calculations and aiding experimental design by visually evaluating orientation feasibility and estimating counting times. Finally, to complete the analysis path from the experiments to the results, the experimental and numerical evaluations are processed together with POLTex (MATLAB-based toolbox) to obtain the orientation distribution functions. To demonstrate the analysis routine, the crystallographic texture of an additively manufactured steel sample and Zircaloy-4 sample were characterized.
Mapping crystallite orientation in bulk polycrystals
A new experimental technique allows the orientation distribution of small-grained polycrystal materials to me mapped in 3D.