Scientific Highlights

Analytical Research Infrastructures of Europe (ARIE)

Analytical Research Infrastructures of Europe (ARIE) join forces to face COVID-19 and other viral and microbial threats

After the joint position paper published as a pre-release in July, in which the Analytical Research Infrastructures of Europe (ARIE) presented their plan to tackle HE Missions,  the ARIE enhanced its cross-border, multidisciplinary collaboration to offer Europe a strong and valid weapon against the present COVID-19 challenge and other potential viral and microbial threats.

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Advances in long-wavelength native phasing at X-ray free-electron lasers

Long-wavelength pulses from the Swiss X-ray free-electron laser (XFEL) have been used for de novo protein structure determination by native single-wavelength anomalous diffraction (native-SAD) phasing of serial femtosecond crystallography (SFX) data.

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Narrow-band and tunable intense terahertz pulses for mode-selective coherent phonon excitation

We generate frequency-tunable narrow-band intense fields in the terahertz (THz) range by optical rectification of a temporally modulated near-infrared laser pumping a nonlinear organic crystal.

Integrated Circuits

The tiniest secrets of integrated circuits revealed

New research has demonstrated that the secrets of the tiniest active structures in integrated circuits can be revealed using a non-destructive imaging technique. The breakthrough required the efforts of an international team of scientists from JKU and Keysight Technologies (Austria), ETH/EPFL/PSI and IBM Research - Europe (Switzerland) and from UCL (UK).

Chern Number

Cherned up to the maximum

In topological materials, electrons can display behaviour that is fundamentally different from that in ‘conventional’ matter, and the magnitude of many such ‘exotic’ phenomena is directly proportional to an entity known as the Chern number. New experiments establish for the first time that the theoretically predicted maximum Chern number can be reached — and controlled — in a real material.

Analytical Research Infrastructures of Europe (ARIEs)

Analytical Research Infrastructures as key resources for the five Horizon Europe Missions

Moon-shot missions, such as those of Horizon Europe, require exceptional solutions, and the world-leading Analytical Research Infrastructures of Europe (ARIEs) are one of the key places those solutions can be sought. The ARIE Joint Position Paper highlighting how the common, complementary approach will help address the societal challenges of the Horizon Europe Missions framework programme was presented today.

Luftbild PSI

Grosser Rat bewilligt 2,4 Millionen für Technologiezentrum Anaxam

Der Kanton Aargau unterstützt das Technologietransferzentrum Anaxam in Villigen für die Dauer von vier Jahren mit insgesamt 2,4 Millionen Franken. Der Grosse Rat hat am Dienstag in Spreitenbach den entsprechenden Kredit mit 124 zu 3 Stimmen bewilligt.

Dikic lab

First MX results of the priority COVID-19 call

The Dikic group at the Goethe University in Frankfurt am Main, Germany has published the first results following the opening of the "PRIORITY COVID-19 Call” at SLS. 

Cover Materials Today

Operando X-ray diffraction during laser 3D printing

Ultra-fast operando X-ray diffraction experiments reveal the temporal evolution of low and high temperature phases and the formation of residual stresses during laser 3D printing of a Ti-6Al-4V alloy. The profound influence of the length of the laser-scanning vector  on the evolving microstructure is revealed and elucidated.  

covid-19

SLS MX beamtime update

Update of the SLS MX beamline operation during the COVID-19 period

Innovation Award on Synchrotron Radiation 2019 for the development of XFEL detectors using the adaptive gain principle

Innovation Award on Synchrotron Radiation 2019 for the development of XFEL detectors using the adaptive gain principle

The Innovation Award on Synchrotron Radiation 2019 was given to the researchers Prof. Heinz Graafsma from Desy and Dr. Aldo Mozzanica and Dr. Bernd Schmitt both from the Paul Scherrer Institute. The three physicists were honored for their contributions to the development of detectors for XFEL applications based on the dynamic gain switching principle enabling simultaneously single photon resolution and a large dynamic range. The laudation was held by Prof. Edgar Weckert from Desy. The Synchrotron Radiation Innovation Award is sponsored by SPECS GmbH and BESTEC GmbH.

Illustration of the crystal structure of (MA)PbBr3

Ultrafast diffuse x-ray scattering of a hybrid perovskite crystal

Organic–inorganic ‘hybrid’ perovskites have recently gained attention as a low-cost alternative to silicon solar cells. However, many properties of these materials are still poorly understood. In particular, how imperfections in the crystals, which can be both static or dynamic, affect energy transport remains unclear.

ExPaNDS partners meet at the grant kick-off meeting in September 2019

New 6M€ European grant awarded to ExPaNDS to drive open access data

A new 6M€ grant is being launched for the Photon and Neutron Data Services (ExPaNDS) to come together and work under the European Open Science Cloud (EOSC). This ambitious project will create enormous opportunities for scientific communities, and through their findings for humankind worldwide. It aims to publish and map the data behind the thousands of successful published scientific papers generated by Europe’s Photon and Neutron Research Infrastructures (PaN RIs) – which every year create petabytes of data – and make it available to all.