Notizie

ISS received the first light on 10.07.2025. After that, the endstation has been reconnected and aligned. During the shutdown period, the ScientaOmicron R4000 HiPP-2 analyser has undergone maintenance and upgrade. It features now a new detector (new MCP and 70 Hz camera) and ethernet communication.

First in-house and pilot users have measured in November and December 2025. A first official call for proposals will open in February 2026 (deadline March 16^th 2026, beamtime periods scheduled from September to December 2026). Please contact Dr. Luca Artiglia for more information.  

The pentafluorophenyl cation (C₆F₅⁺) breaks these rules with a borderline “crazy” reactivity.

By combining in situ XPS measurements carried out at ISS with theoretical calculations, reactivity/kinetics tests and high resolution electron microscopy, it was demonstrated that the reactivity of a Pt/CeO₂ towards the low temperature water gas shift reaction is boosted on small platinum clusters originated by sintering of atomically dispersed species. A comprehensive model allowed to determine the most active sites, which are corner sites at the perimeter between platinum and ceria. 

Nanometre‑thin, free‑flowing liquid sheets now let Swiss Light Source users record pristine VUV absorption spectra of water, and soon any solvent.

A new review article, just published in Reviews of Modern Physics and highlighted on the journal cover, provides a map to the vast landscape of software codes that allow researchers to calculate Wannier functions, and to use them for materials properties predictions.  The authors, from all over Europe and the USA, include two PSI scientists. After providing readers with the theoretical foundations on Wannier functions and their calculation, together with intuitive graphical schematics to explain what Wannier functions are, the authors map the existing Wannier codes and the key applications.

In a new article published in Computer Physics Communications, the team of the Open Software Services for Classrooms and Research project (OSSCAR) describes how to create custom widgets and extensions that can be used in interactive notebooks to teach computational materials science. The article also introduces two new entries in OSSCAR: a widget to display an interactive periodic table that allows users to group elements into different states, and one to plot and visualize electronic band structures and density of states.

A group of researchers from the LMS lab at PSI has conducted a "hero run" on the new Swiss supercomputer, occupying it entirely for about 20 hours with calculations managed remotely by the AiiDA software tools. The run demonstrated the efficiency and stability of AiiDA, that could seamlessly fill the entire capacity of an exascale machine, as well as the performance of the Alps supercomputer, that has been just inaugurated. All the results will soon be published on the Materials Cloud.

In situ XPS is an extremely powerful method to identify reaction intermediates formed at the solid-gas interface under reactive environments. In this work, an model silver surface catalyst (silver foil) was investigated upon exposure to ethylene and oxygen at increasing temperature. High resolution Ag 3d and O 1s spectra combined with theoretical calculations of core-electron binding energies allowed identifying oxygen reaction intermediates that selectively oxidize ethylene to ethylene oxide. A frequency selective method based on Fourier transform was developed and used to process time-resolved data acquired under modulation excitation conditions. This further demonstratred that the topmost oxygen atom of di-oxygen adsorbed on silver, which was previously identified as electrophylic oxygen,  is the most active and selective intermediate.