Advancing hydrogen as a replacement for carbon fuels

Advancing hydrogen as a replacement for carbon fuels

While the notion of using hydrogen for energy has been around since Sir William Grove first invented the fuel cell in 1838, the idea started to get more traction after the first use of fuel cells in space for NASA’s 1965 Gemini V mission.

More recently, researchers like Tess Seip, a PhD candidate in the Mechanical and Industrial Engineering Department at the University of Toronto (UToronto), have been investigating hydrogen as a green energy source to mitigate carbon emissions.

Seip and a team led by Dr. Aimy Bazylak are working to improve the efficiency of a device that uses electricity—preferably from solar and wind sources—to convert water into hydrogen and oxygen gases, which can then be stored and used for energy. The device is called a polymer electrolyte membrane water electrolyzer, or PEMWE for short.

The UToronto team was focused on a specific layer inside the PEMWE, called the porous transport layer (PTL), which controls the flow of water inside. Water passes through the PTL before it reaches a catalyst layer, which splits the water molecule.

However, the reaction—known as electrolysis—can cause excess gas to accumulate, which prevents water from reaching the catalyst. Seip and her colleagues were testing a new design they developed, which has extra channels in it, to improve water flow. Better water flow means less energy is needed to drive the process.

With the help of the Canadian Light Source (CLS) at the University of Saskatchewan, the team found that their simple modification did in fact improve the efficiency of a PEMWE.

Seip and her colleagues were particularly interested to see if there were changes in membrane thickness and PTL hydration. “If it’s not hydrated, it slows the reaction rate and reduces the efficiency,” says Seip.

The ultra bright light produced by the CLS synchrotron was critical for their work: “The BMIT beamline at the CLS has a resolution of around 6.5 microns per pixel, so this lets us characterize these microscopic changes in the membrane,” says Seip. For reference, the typical human hair is 65 microns thick. “The most important factor is that we are able to do this while the cell is operating.”

Read more on CLS website

Image: The research team at the BMIT-ID beamline at the Canadian Light Source. L-R: Tess Seip, Lijun Zhu, Chaeyoung Tina Ham, Dr. Alexandre Tugirumubano, and Prof. Aimy Bazylak.

Britta Redlich takes over as Photon Science Director at DESY

Britta Redlich takes over as Photon Science Director at DESY

Former director of the Dutch research facility HFML-FELIX comes to Hamburg

Britta Redlich will take over the lead of the Photon Science research division at DESY on 1 January 2025. The Professor of experimental physics was previously Director of the FELIX free-electron laser and the HFML high-field magnetic laboratory at Radboud University in Nijmegen (Netherlands).

Helmut Dosch, Chairman of the DESY Board of Directors, is looking forward to working together with her: “Britta Redlich´s experience and passion for research are an enrichment for DESY. With her appointment, DESY has gained a personality who shares and will drive forward our vision of cutting-edge research and technological innovation. I am convinced that she will provide decisive momentum for the future of Photon Science at DESY, in Europe and worldwide.”

Britta Redlich received her doctorate in chemistry from the University of Hanover in 1998 and initially worked as a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Münster. In 2000, she went to the FOM Institute Rijnhuizen in the Netherlands with an Emmy Noether Programme from the German Research Foundation. She conducted research with the FELIX (Free-Electron Lasers for Infrared eXperiment) free-electron laser and was in charge of its operation from 2003. After the laser was transferred to Radboud University Nijmegen in 2013, she took on the role of Chairwoman in 2015, became Director of FELIX in 2018 and also Director of HFML (High Field Magnet Laboratory) in 2023.

Britta Redlich is a Senator of the Helmholtz Association for the Research Field Matter and a member of international consortia such as LEAPS, LaserLab Europe and FELs of Europe. Collaboration in these networks has expanded her expertise in the development and utilisation of state-of-the-art light sources.

Read more on DESY website

Image: Chemist and Professor of experimental physics Britta Redlich will head the Photon Science research division at DESY from January 2025.

Credit: DESY, Jörg Müller

10 years of research on magnetism at MISTRAL: visualization of hyperbolic Bloch points

10 years of research on magnetism at MISTRAL: visualization of hyperbolic Bloch points

The vector tomography method developed at MISTRAL beamline of the ALBA Synchrotron enables to visualize with nanometric resolution the orientation of the magnetization in magnetic singularities located in magnetic films or multilayers. After 10 years of research, it is reported the first observation of hyperbolic Bloch points, attractive entities for magnetic information transport.

About 70% of all the digitally stored data in the world are located in magnetic bits on disks that have to rotate to reach the location of movable reading sensors. This storage technology, thirty years old, consumes energy and dissipates heat at undesired levels. The search for more efficient methods has been, and still is, an active field of investigation.

Instead of movable parts as disks that require electrical motors, one aims to move the magnetic domains in magnetic ultra-thin films by applying electrical currents or other excitations reducing the operating powers by orders of magnitude. Within this general approach, known as spintronics, the magnetic domains and the walls that separate domains with opposite magnetization are very important actors.

The magnetic structure of the domain walls historically classified in Bloch and Neel types, includes singularities namely skyrmions, merons and Bloch points among others, that have only been observed in recent years. The structure of the magnetization in these singularities may confer them enough energetic stability to be considered as possible dynamic entities for spintronic-based magnetic memories.

As their sizes are nanometric and their magnetic conformation is in general complicated, state of the art microscopy methods are required to visualize them. At the MISTRAL beamline of the ALBA Synchrotron  this topic has been investigated since already ten years and progressively the accuracy of the description of magnetic entities has been improved. The experimental method, known as vector magnetic tomography, allows to visualize with nanometric resolution the orientation of the magnetization in magnetic singularities located in magnetic films or multilayers. It is based on the angular dependence of the dichroic magnetic absorption (different X ray absorption for right and left handed circularly polarized photons).

Read more on ALBA website

Ryszard Sobierajski new Council vice-chair

Ryszard Sobierajski new Council vice-chair

At the recent meeting of the European XFEL Council, Dr hab. Ryszard Henryk Sobierajski was elected as new vice-chair of the European XFEL’s highest governing body. He will follow by the end of the year Prof. Dr James (Jim) Henderson Naismith.

“We thank Jim for many years of inspiring contributions as European XFEL’s vice-chair,” says Thomas Feurer, Managing Director and Chair of the Management Board of European XFEL. “And we heartily welcome our well-known colleague Ryszard.”

“Ryszard is a profound expert of research with synchrotron light and free electron-lasers, and an experienced science manager,” adds Federico Boscherini, Chair of the European XFEL Council.

Sobierajski takes up his office with effect from 1 January 2025 and for a period of two years. He is Associate Professor at the Institute of Physics of the Polish Academy of Sciences, Warszawa, Poland and since January 2020 one of the Polish delegates to the European XFEL council. Additionally, he is an expert on the Proposal Review Panel for the HED instrument at European XFEL–most of the time as its chair.

Read more on XFEL website

Image: The coming vice-chair of the European XFEL Council, Ryszard Sobierajski

Mapping the Nanoscale Architecture of Functional Materials

Mapping the Nanoscale Architecture of Functional Materials

At the Swiss Light Source SLS, researchers have developed a pioneering X-ray technique to probe the 3D orientation of a material’s building blocks at the nanoscale. Applied to a polycrystalline catalyst, the technique allows the visualisation of crystal grains, grain boundaries and defects – key factors dictating catalyst performance. Beyond catalysis, the innovation unlocks previously inaccessible details about the structure of diverse functional materials, including those used in information technology, energy storage and biomedical applications. The findings are reported in Nature. 

Zoom in to the micro or nanostructure of functional materials, both natural and manmade, and you’ll find they consist of thousands upon thousands of coherent domains or grains – distinct regions where molecules and atoms are arranged in a repeating pattern. 

Such local ordering is inextricably linked to the material properties. The size, orientation, and distribution of grains can make the difference between a sturdy brick or a crumbling stone; it determines the ductility of metal, the efficiency of electron transfer in a semiconductor, or the thermal conductivity of ceramics. It is also an important feature of biological materials: collagen fibres, for example, are formed from a network of fibrils and their organisation determines the biomechanical performance of connective tissue. 

These domains are often tiny: tens of nanometres in size. And it is their arrangement in three-dimensions over extended volumes that is property-determining. Yet until now, techniques to probe the organisation of materials at the nanoscale have largely been confined to two-dimensions or are destructive in nature. 

Now, using X-rays generated by the Swiss Light Source SLS, a collaborative team of researchers from Paul Scherrer Institute PSI, ETH Zurich, the University of Oxford and the Max Plank Institute for Chemical Physics of Solids have succeeded in creating an imaging technique to access this information in three-dimensions.

Read more on PSI website

Image: Many functional materials are composed of coherent domains or grains, where molecules and atoms are arranged in a repeating pattern that determines performance. X-ray Linear Dichroic Orientation Tomography (XL-DOT) allows 3D mapping of material microstructure at the nanoscale. Here, the technique is applied to a pillar of vanadium pentoxide catalyst, used in the production of sulfuric acid. The colours in the tomogram represent the different orientation of grains.

Credit: Paul Scherrer Institute PSI/Andreas Apseros

Discovery paves way for next-generation medications

Discovery paves way for next-generation medications

As the problem of antibiotic resistance continues to grow, we need new drugs that the bad bacteria in our bodies don’t already know how to avoid. New research by scientists at McGill University represents a major step forward in our ability to develop medicines whose effectiveness will endure in the battle against infections.

The study, published in the prestigious journal Nature, has revealed how molecular machinery inside nature’s microbes builds antibiotics. Researchers have been working on this problem for decades, and this new insight represents a major step forward in our ability to create new drugs and medicines.

Scientists Angelos Pistofidis and Martin Schmeing used the Canadian Light Source (CLS) at the University of Saskatchewan to take groundbreaking pictures of the molecular machinery’s crystal structure.

The molecular machines that Pistofidis and Schmeing studied are called nonribosomal peptide synthetases, or NRPSs. They build some of the most important compounds in current health care and environmental treatments, including antibiotics, anti-cancer agents, and immunosuppressants.

“They have an immense number of applications,” says Pistofidis. “For example, the peptide cyclosporin has been used many, many times as an immunosuppressant for organ transplant operations.”

The breakthrough in their project was capturing images of the NRPS during a key step in the process of building antibiotics. Previously, they had identified the steps involved in NRPS’s production process, but the details were hazy. The synchrotron played a key role in their work.

“The CLS is a world-class establishment. You can very rapidly and very efficiently collect data. It made the whole experience of collecting data on a very complex crystal, like the one that we presented in the paper, quite efficient,” says Schmeing.

Getting the NRPS machine to pause at this step took Pistofidis four years of work, while Schmeing has been working on uncovering the details of this whole process for 15 years.

Read more on CLS website

New detoxification pathway for mercury in penguins

New detoxification pathway for mercury in penguins

An international team of scientists led by the ESRF has found that emperor penguins detoxify mercury with both sulphur and selenium, a new pathway for a marine predator. This new detoxification pathway for mercury has been unveiled in a study published in the Journal of Hazardous Materials.

Mercury is considered by WHO as one of the top ten chemicals of major public health concern. Mercury bioaccumulates in organisms along time and biomagnifies in aquatic and terrestrial food webs as the neurotoxic form of methylmercury. Understanding the internal detoxification processes of methylmercury in animals is essential for protecting wildlife and designing treatments against mercury poisoning.

Alain Manceau, ESRF scientist and researcher emeritus at the CNRS, together with his collaborators from the University of La Rochelle and the CNRS (LIENSs and CEBC), the United States Geological Survey, and the University of California Davis, has been studying how animals detoxify mercury for years.

Back in 2021, they unveiled that apex predators, such as seabirds like giant petrels, and marine mammals like pilot whales, detoxify methylmercury through a sequence of reactions involving reduced selenium in the form of a prominent selenoprotein. Since mercury is ultimately detoxified as nontoxic mercury selenide, it has diminished toxicological consequences as long as there is sufficient selenium, because mercury selenide is chemically inert.

“We knew the mechanism that animals that are exposed to large quantities of mercury use; now we wanted to find out what happens with animals that are lower in the food chain, such as penguins”, Manceau explains. Emperor penguins feed mostly on Antarctic silver fish and squid, which contain methylmercury, albeit not in large quantities. Because of this, penguins are less contaminated with mercury than toothed whales, giant petrels, and other predators higher in the food web.

The scientists, who used X-ray absorption spectroscopy, identified, for the first time, a second demethylation pathway of toxic methylmercury. In Emperor penguins, the toxic mercury is partially detoxified using the same chemical pathway as giant petrels, but theses penguins have also developed a second mechanism whereby their body forms a Hg-dithiolate complex. This complex binds to cysteine amino acids in enzymes, altering their function. This demethylation pathway had never been observed before in animals, only in bacteria.  

Read more on ESRF website

Image: A baby penguin.

Credit: Yves Cherel. 

Technology Development for Producing Nearly Commercializable CO2-Free Green Hydrogen

Technology Development for Producing Nearly Commercializable CO2-Free Green Hydrogen

This study proposes a photo-electrode material technology that may significantly change the development of photo-electrochemical hydrogen production technology. With this study, it is expected that hydrogen production using photo-electrodes at a commercial level will be possible soon.

Hydrogen is an eco-friendly energy source that reduces greenhouse gases and fine dust. It is essential for building a clean and safe society. Currently, hydrogen production relies on utilizing the by-product hydrogen from petrochemical processes and extracting from natural gas. However, these production methods generate CO2, creating an ironic situation of contributing to global warming while aiming for a clean Earth.

The commercialization of solar-based production technology is urgently needed to address this issue. The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) set specific goals for expanding clean hydrogen production in the “US National Clean Hydrogen Strategy and Roadmap” released in June 2023. Also, it established targets for commercializing solar-based hydrogen production technology at the level of a solar-to-hydrogen (STH) conversion efficiency of over 10 %, stability for over 1000 hours, and a PEC (photo-electrochemical) H2 system cost of $ 2-4 per kilogram. Various research and investments are underway to achieve these goals.

Hydrogen (H2) production requires photo-electrodes with high PEC activity and durability. However, surface defects, photo-corrosion instability, and especially instability at high potentials degrade PEC performance and stability. In this study, we introduced an HfO2 protective layer and a NiPt single-atom catalyst to improve the surface of a BiVO4 photoelectrode, classified as a low-cost material, and controlled strong corrosivity, achieving a high stability of over 800 hours. This was evaluated under one-sun solar light (100 mW/cm²). This study has significant implications as it is the first demonstration of long-term performance in the world. Furthermore, we achieved a solar-to-hydrogen conversion efficiency of 6.0 % of the self-driven photo-electrochemical water splitting device based on the BiVO4 photoelectrode, which is significant as it is approximately 90 % of the theoretical efficiency of the BiVO4 material.

Read more on PAL website

Cancer Research Horizons and Diamond Light Source establish drug discovery partnership

Cancer Research Horizons and Diamond Light Source establish drug discovery partnership

Cancer Research Horizons, the innovation arm of Cancer Research UK, is partnering with Diamond Light Source, the UK’s national synchrotron, to build a world-leading fragment-based drug discovery programme

Diamond Light Source accelerates electrons to near light speed, producing bright light that is directed into research instruments known as beamlines. Cancer Research Horizons and its drug discovery site at Newcastle University have already been using Diamond’s beamlines and XChem facility for fragment-based screening, a powerful approach to identify chemical entities that can be developed rapidly into potent candidates.

The new partnership will build on this existing relationship to improve the throughput, running and analysis of these experiments. By leveraging their combined expertise and resources, the partnership aims to accelerate the drug discovery process and help bring new cancer treatments to patients faster.

Under the agreement, Cancer Research Horizons will fund two on-site postdoctoral research assistants dedicated to optimising the delivery of its in-house and industry-partnered projects. In return, Diamond will provide early access to any proprietary developments to its platform.

The partnership will establish a governance framework to enable Cancer Research Horizons to provide feedback on the industrialisation of Diamond’s Fragment Screening platform. This initiative aims to enhance its appeal to Cancer Research Horizons’ pharmaceutical and biotech partners, driving broader industry engagement.

Read more on Diamond website

UK and Switzerland partner for science using neutrons, muons and X-rays

UK and Switzerland partner for science using neutrons, muons and X-rays

A strategic partnership between research facilities in the UK and Switzerland has been established by the UK International Science Partnerships Fund (ISPF), which will develop new capabilities for science using neutrons, muons and X-rays. 

UK facilities – ISIS Neutron and Muon Source (ISIS) and the Diamond Light Source, located at the Rutherford Appleton Laboratory (RAL) – and the Paul Scherrer Institute (PSI), in Switzerland – home to the Swiss Spallation Neutron Source SINQ, the Swiss Muon Source SµS, the Swiss Light Source SLS and the X-ray Free-Electron Laser SwissFEL, will create new scientific capabilities to address global challenges.  

These large-scale research infrastructures have a rich history in pushing forward science in key areas for our society, such as net zero technology development, healthcare solutions and therapies, and resilient communications, relying on their ability to study material properties at the atomic and molecular scales. Recent studies have included investigation of materials for enhanced batteries, quantum computing and technologies, and novel drug delivery mechanisms, as well as fundamental science investigations. The ISPF partnership will enable new projects to be taken forward, developing capabilities for research facilities that benefit society overall. 

Researchers and technical teams from ISIS, Diamond and PSI have already worked in close collaboration for many years. The ISPF funding will allow an extension of collaborations into new research areas, enabling the development of novel capabilities in both countries. Around 16 projects will be taken forward as part of the programme, with 16 early-career postdoctoral researchers employed to work between the facilities. 

Read more on Diamond website

Image: Meeting of members of the ISIS – Diamond – PSI partnership at the Rutherford Appleton Laboratory, 27-28 November 2024.

New type of battery could outlast EVs

New type of battery could outlast EVs

There’s a big push underway to increase the lifespan of lithium-ion batteries powering EVs on the road today. By law, in the US, these cells must be able to hold 80% of their original full charge after eight years of operation.

However, many industry experts believe we need batteries that last decades – so that once they’re no longer robust enough for use in EVs, we can put them to use in “second-life applications” – such as bundling them together to store wind and solar energy to power the electrical grid.

Researchers from Dalhousie University used the Canadian Light Source (CLS) at the University of Saskatchewan to analyze a new type of lithium-ion battery material – called a single-crystal electrode – that’s been charging and discharging non-stop in a Halifax lab for more than six years. It lasted more than 20,000 cycles before it hit the 80% capacity cutoff. That translates to driving a jaw-dropping 8 million kms.  As part of the study, the researchers compared the new type of battery – which has only recently come to market – to a regular lithium-ion battery that lasted 2,400 cycles before it reached the 80% cutoff.

“The main focus of our research was to understand how damage and fatigue inside a battery progresses over time, and how we can prevent it,” says Toby Bond, a senior scientist at the CLS, who conducted the research for his PhD, under the supervision of Professor Jeff Dahn, Professor Emeritus and Principal Investigator (NSERC/Tesla Canada/Dalhousie Alliance Grant) at Dalhousie University. The study was funded by Tesla Canada and NSERC under the Alliance grant program.

Things got very interesting, he says, when the scientists used the ultrabright synchrotron light to peer inside the two batteries. When they looked at the inner workings of the regular lithium-ion battery, they saw an extensive amount of microscopic cracking in the electrode material, caused by repeated charging and discharging. The lithium, he explains, actually forces the atoms in the battery material apart and causes expansion and contraction of the material.

“Eventually, there were so many cracks that the electrode was essentially pulverized.”

However, when the researchers looked at the single crystal electrode battery, they saw next to no evidence of this mechanical stress. “In our images, it looked very much like a brand-new cell. We could almost not tell the difference.”

Bond attributes the near absence of degradation in the new style battery to the difference in the shape and behaviour of the particles that make up the battery electrodes. In the regular battery, the battery electrodes are made up of tiny particles up to 50 times smaller than the width of a hair. If you zoom in on these particles, they are composed of even tinier crystals that are bunched together like snowflakes in a snowball. The single crystal is, as its name implies, one big crystal: it’s more like an ice cube. “If you have a snowball in one hand, and an ice cube in the other, it’s a lot easier to crush the snowball,” says Bond. “The ice cube is much more resistant to mechanical stress and strain.”

Read more on CLS website

Scientists visualise the paths controlling heart performance

Scientists visualise the paths controlling heart performance

Scientists have found the role of two proteins in the functioning of the heart. The results could help better design targeted strategies to treat certain cardiomyopathies. The results are out in PNAS.

The heart works using tiny muscle filaments, and two main steps control how they interact: first calcium signals cause changes in the thin filament (actin), allowing it to connect with myosin motors. Then myosin motors on the thick filament switch from “off” (inactive) to “on” (active), so they can pull on actin and create force and shortening. The thick filament can sense how much force is needed and adjust how many motors to turn on, but scientists are still figuring out exactly how this works.

Cardiomyopathies take place when these mechanisms regulating the contraction-relaxation cycle of the heart malfunction. This is due to mutations in the contractile proteins (myosin and actin) but also in accessory proteins (Myosin-binding protein-C and titin). Broadly, MyBP-C and titin ensure together that the heart contracts effectively while maintaining responsiveness to changes in demand.

A team from the University of Firenze (Italy) used small-angle X-ray diffraction at the ESRF’s ID02 beamline back in 2017 and showed that, during muscle contraction, myosin motors move outward from the thick filament, enabling interaction with actin based on the load, which in the cardiac ventricle is the arterial pressure against which blood must be pumped (Reconditi et al. PNAS 2017). Evidence from other laboratories also suggested that thick filament activation is modulated by regulatory domains in the myosin motor itself and by accessory proteins like MyBP-C and titin. However, their specific function in cardiac performance was not known in detail.

Now the same team has found the role that MyBP-C and titin play in the functioning of the heart, at beamline ID02. “The beamline ID02 is ideal thanks to its camera length, so we can have the detector closer or further to the samples in a range from 0.5 to 31 m. This lets us explore the contractile proteins as well as the sarcomere, the unit cell of muscle, which is crucial for our research”, says Massimo Reconditi, scientist at the University of Firenze and corresponding author of the paper. “With EBS, thanks to its low divergence, we can observe on the same diffraction pattern a high number of reflections together with their fine structure”, he adds. 

Read more on ESRF website

Image: Theyencheri Narayanan, scientist in charge of ID02, on the beamline.

Credit: S. Candé. 

Tracking the ‘medication taxis’

Tracking the ‘medication taxis’

A team of researchers has been using the X-ray source PETRA III to visualise the spread of an anticancer drug in tumor cells

How can cancer drugs be delivered safely to their destination? An international team of researchers has been using the X-ray source PETRA III to test a technique for visualising how a drug is distributed inside tumor cells. In the future, this approach could help to develop more targeted and hence more effective cancer therapies. The working group has presented its findings in the journal Advanced Functional Materials.

Some anticancer drugs present a special challenge. They do not dissolve easily in the blood or they break down too quickly and because of this they are unable to reach the site where they are needed: the tumor. Researchers have come up with an ingenious strategy to overcome this: they enclose the drug in a molecular capsule. On being administered, this medication taxi makes its way through the body. Once it reaches the tumor, the capsule dissolves and releases the drug.

The only trouble is that it is difficult to observe how well this strategy is working. How do the drug capsules find their way into the tumor cells? And do they actually release the drug inside them? To answer these questions, researchers have until now had to label the drugs using special dyes. When a laser beam is shone at these, they light up like signal lamps and reveal the distribution of the drug inside a cell.

This method has its drawbacks, however. The markers are usually similar in size to the drug molecules themselves, and this can distort the readings. “It’s as if you were trying to track a fish through the ocean by fitting it with a transmitter that is as big as the creature itself,” explains Marvin Skiba, a PhD student in Wolfgang Parak’s group at the University of Hamburg’s Centre for Hybrid Nanostructures. “In that case, it’s doubtful whether the fish would move around in the same way as it would without the transmitter.” It would be helpful, therefore, to have a way of seeing the drug inside the medication taxi without having to label it with a dye.

One promising approach is X-ray fluorescence, a technique that can detect minute traces of a chemical element. The principle is straightforward. “When an X-ray beam strikes a sample, it excites the elements in it,” explains DESY physicist Gerald Falkenberg. “The excited atoms want to shed this energy quickly by emitting X-ray quanta. We use detectors to capture these quanta.”

The crucial point is that every element emits a different “X-ray colour”, thereby leaving its own distinctive fingerprint. The X-ray beam scans the sample line by line, creating a map of the elements. This requires a very powerful, narrow X-ray beam, such as the one generated by DESY’s X-ray source PETRA III at beamline P06.

To determine the suitability of this method for studying drugs transported in medication taxis, Skiba and Falkenberg’s team focused on a compound containing the element selenium, a potential therapeutic for treating tumors. “We enclosed the compound in a variety of different microparticles,” explains Marvin Skiba. “We then injected these into a cell culture and used X-rays to track how the selenium was distributed in the cells.”

Read more om DESY website

Image: Depending on the route of administration, the intracellular distribution of the selenium-based drug changes. When non-biodegradable polymers are used as the building blocks of the capsules, the selenium remains in the container and is not released (upper picture). The situation is different when amino acid and sugar-based vehicles are used which are digested by the cell and result in intracellular redistribution of the drug (lower picture). Cells are shown in grey while selenium is pseudocoloured from blue to yellow, depending on the concentration.

Credit: DESY, Marvin Skiba

A new authentication technology – A novel technique to fight counterfeiting

A new authentication technology – A novel technique to fight counterfeiting

In today’s world, the fight against counterfeiting is more critical than ever. Counterfeiting affects about 3% of global trade, posing significant risks to the economy and public safety. From fake pharmaceuticals to counterfeit currency, the need for secure and reliable authentication methods is paramount. Authentication labels are commonly used – such as holograms on bank notes and passports – but there is always a need for new unfalsifiable technologies.   

This is where new groundbreaking research recently published in Applied Sciences comes into play.  Led by a team of scientists from Oxford University, the University of Southampton, and Diamond Light Source, the UK’s national synchrotron, the work focuses on developing a new technology for writing and reading covert information on authentication labels. This technology leverages the unique properties of Ge2Sb2Te5 thin films, which can change their structure when exposed to specific types of laser light. By using circularly or linearly polarised laser light, the researchers can encode hidden information in these thin films. This information can then be revealed using a simple reading device, making the technology both advanced and accessible. The paper is called ‘Application of Photo-Induced Chirality in Covert Authentication’ and explains how photo-induced chirality in Ge2Sb2Te5 thin films can be exploited to improve authentication.   

The significance of this research lies in its potential applications. Authentication labels are essential in various industries, including pharmaceuticals, electronics, and currency. The ability to encode and read covert information securely can help prevent counterfeiting and ensure the authenticity of products. Moreover, the technology’s reliance on existing manufacturing methods makes it a practical solution for widespread use.  

To create these new authentication labels, the authors deposited 55nm thick film on a disk substrate. After that, author, Dr Konstantin Borisenko, Research Computing Administrator at University of Oxford explained,

We ‘wrote’ a predesigned pattern of spots using a laser and a polariser.  Then we used the B23 beamline at Diamond Light Source to ‘read’ the film using circular dichroism (CD), a type of spectroscopy, and recorded the CD spectra in transmission mode.

Read more on Diamond website

Making solar cells more weatherproof

Making solar cells more weatherproof

Dr. Tim Kelly calls it “the magic of science” – when what you think is going to happen doesn’t, but what you learn in the process promises to inform advances in a new type of solar cell. Solar cells, which convert sunlight into electricity, are increasingly being used to power everything from buildings and electric cars, to watches and toys.

In recent experiments at the Canadian Light Source (CLS) at the University of Saskatchewan (USask), Kelly, professor of chemistry at USask, and his team were trying to figure out why solar cells made with lead halide perovskite, rather than silicon, were failing prematurely. Perovskite, he explained, is a new semiconductor material that requires much less energy to produce than silicon, giving it an environmental advantage.

But it was a puzzle: “What makes them unstable? Why were these cells failing?”

Thinking the problem lay in the perovskite formulation, Kelly used a synchrotron technique called x-ray diffraction to visualize the 3D structure of the atoms in the material in real time.

In the experiments, Kelly and his team found cell performance started to decline with the introduction of humidity.

“We thought humidity would degrade the perovskite … because it does tend to pick up moisture more rapidly.” However, because they were able to watch – at a microscopic scale — the failure process as it unfolded, they could see that the moisture causes ions in the perovskite to become more mobile, to migrate to the electrode and to corrode it, “and now your device is no longer operative.”

“Like most of your electronics, it turns out getting these things wet is not a good idea.”

Kelly’s research identified possible solutions to address the issue of premature cell failure, including using corrosion-resistant materials for the electrodes, buffer layers to prevent the mobile ions from reaching the electrodes, or fully encapsulating the cell to keep out any moisture.

“There’s a lot of promise to the material (perovskite),” said Kelly, so solving the moisture issue could lead to high-performing and reliable solar cells.

The CLS was key to solving the cell-failure question, he said.

Read more on CLS website

Slow Atomic Movements Shed New Light on Unconventional Superconductivity

Slow Atomic Movements Shed New Light on Unconventional Superconductivity

Materials known as unconventional superconductors can conduct electricity with no loss at higher temperatures than regular superconductors. But after 40 years of research, those temperatures are still quite cold – about 140 degrees Celsius below the freezing point of water. Engineering them to operate in much warmer conditions – a development that could spur revolutions in energy, microelectronics and other fields – requires a much better understanding of how these complex materials work.

Almost all the research so far has focused on very fast processes that may contribute to superconductivity – for instance, natural, high-frequency vibrations known as phonons that rattle a material’s atomic latticework trillions of times per second.

Now researchers at the Department of Energy’s SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory have taken a new look from the opposite direction: They observed how an exceedingly slow process known as atomic relaxation changes in the presence of two of the quantum states that intertwine in cuprate superconductors. 

The results suggest that the relaxation process is a promising tool for exploring and understanding those two states – charge density waves (CDWs), which are stripes of higher and lower electron density in the material, and the superconducting state itself, which switches on when the material chills below its transition temperature.

The research team described the results today in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Read more on SLAC website

Image: A SLAC research team discovered how an exceedingly slow process known as atomic relaxation changes in the presence of two of the quantum states that intertwine in cuprate superconductors. The results suggest that the relaxation process is a promising tool for exploring and understanding those two states – charge density waves (depicted above), which are stripes of higher and lower electron density in the material, and the superconducting state itself, which switches on when the material chills below its transition temperature.

Credit: Greg Stewart/SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory