Scientific Highlights
Mirror, mirror on the wall…
…. Now we know there are chiral phonons for sure
Discovery of a large unquenched orbital moment in a 2D van der Waals ferromagnet
3d transition metals often exhibit a quenched orbital moment when in a solid state system. Therefore, the proposition of a large unquenched orbital moment for V in VI3 caused some surprise and discussion in the scientific community. Experimental and theoretical works diverge on the fact of whether the orbital moment is quenched or not. In our work we have been able to give an answer this open issue, proposing also a model for the ground state of VI3.
Unusual ferrimagnetism in CaFe2O4
Rare ferrimagnet states in a phase competing antiferromagnet.
A look into the magnetic future
PSI researchers are the first to observe a specific behaviour of magnetic ice.
Exchange scaling of ultrafast angular momentum transfer in 4f antiferromagnets
A novel approach to controlling the speed of magnetic processes has been found through resonant magnetic scattering in an antiferromagnetic Lanthanide intermetallics.
Fingerprint of Copper in Peptides Linked to Alzheimer's Disease
In an interdisciplinary project, researchers from the Laboratory of Nanoscale Biology in BIO and the Laboratory for Condensed Matter in PSD have revealed the reaction between the nitrogen atoms of the amyloid-beta peptide and copper/zinc ions by using soft X-ray absorption spectroscopy.
Vastly Different Morphologies Dependent on the Growth Temperature
Lithium fluoride is an important material which is technologically exploited in spintronics and organic light emitting devices. It turns out that there is a vast difference between the morphologies of ultrathin lithium fluoride grown on the (100) facet of a silver single crystal. At room temperature dendrites are obtained while at elevated temperature lithium fluoride forms square islands. The system is an interesting model to study the crossover between diffusion limited aggregates and island growth.
Magnetic Bistability at a Record High Temperature in a Sub-Monolayer of Endohedral Fullerenes
A team of the Leibniz Institute for Solid State Research (IFW) from Dresden, Germany, led by Dr Alexey Popov has now demonstrated a record blocking temperature of 28 Kelvin at which the magnetic bistability still survives in a submonolayer of a chemically functionalized species of endofullerenes. In this research, X-ray magnetic circular dichroism measurements at low temperatures and high magnetic field at the X-Treme beam line are crucial. The results pave the way toward using such single-molecule magnets as information carriers or magnetic bits.
Ultrafast electron localization
This experiment performed at SwissFEL shows how fast we can localize electrons out of an electron gas into correlated, well localized states of a material. It is based on a combined ultrafast x-ray absorption and diffraction experiment on an intermetallic system.