Fastest soft X-ray camera in the world installed at European XFEL

Fastest soft X-ray camera in the world installed at European XFEL

DSSC detector will expand scientific capabilities of soft X-ray instruments

At European XFEL near Hamburg the world’s fastest soft X-ray camera has successfully been put through its paces. The installation, commissioning and operation of the unique detector marks the culmination of over a decade of international collaborative research and development. The so-called DSSC detector, designed specifically for the low energy regimes and long X-ray wavelengths used at the European XFEL soft X-ray instruments, will significantly expand the scientific capabilities of the instrument for Spectroscopy and Coherent Scattering (SCS) where it is installed. It will enable ultrafast studies of electronic, spin and atomic structures at the nanoscale making use of each X-ray flash provided by European XFEL. At the end of May, the first scientific experiments using the DSSC were successfully conducted at SCS.

> Read more on the European XFEL website

Image: European XFEL management and staff celebrate the successful installation and commissioning of the DSSC detector at the SCS instrument. The DSSC can be seen behind the group in the centre of the photo. From left to right European XFEL managing director Nicole Elleuche, Detector group leader Markus Kuster, European XFEL managing director Robert Feidenhans’l, DSSC consortium leader Matteo Porro, detector scientist Monica Turcato, SCS group leader Andreas Scherz. Copyright European XFEL

New beamlines at SOLARIS

New beamlines at SOLARIS

Environmental protection, nanotechnology, diagnosis of diseases, and even samples of cosmic dust – these are only some of directions in research that will be performed soon thanks to the decision of the Ministry of Science and Higher Education to finance the construction of two new beamlines and  end station at the SOLARIS synchrotron in Kraków.

The new research infrastructure, eagerly awaited by the Polish scientific community, includes:

  • a beamline for infrared spectroscopic studies (FTIR)
  • a beamline for multimodal X-ray imaging (POLYX)
  • a scanning transmission X-ray end station (STXM).

The main research conducted on the FTIR beamline will focus on biomedical aspects, from in vitro  (conducted on cell cultures in laboratory conditions) to ex vivo experiments (on tissues or cells collected from living bodies), in the range of basic research, developing new analytical technologies and diagnostics.

>Read more on the SOLARIS website

Revolutionary discovery in leukemia research

Revolutionary discovery in leukemia research

Leukemia affects over 6,000 Canadians per year. A team of researchers used the Canadian Light Source (CLS) at the University of Saskatchewan to discover a new way to kill leukemia cancer cells. When the scientists hyperactivated the “garbage disposal systems” of leukemia cells, it caused the cancer to die.
The researchers believe this finding will transform the direction of cancer therapy by focusing on a protein that was previously believed to be impossible to target. Their study was featured on the cover of the journal Cancer Cell.
“It was a major advancement to visualize the structural biology through crystallography facilities at CLS and to prove conclusively that ONC201 binds and hyperactivates ClipP proteases to induce cell death,” said co-author Dr. Aaron Schimmer from the Princess Margaret Cancer Centre and the University of Toronto.

>Read more on the Canadian Light Source website

Image: Interface of two heptamer rings in an apparently closed conformation of human mitochondrial ClpP.

Creating ‘movies’ of thin film growth at NSLS-II

Creating ‘movies’ of thin film growth at NSLS-II

 

Coherent x-rays at NSLS-II enable researchers to produce more accurate observations of thin film growth in real time.

From paint on a wall to tinted car windows, thin films make up a wide variety of materials found in ordinary life. But thin films are also used to build some of today’s most important technologies, such as computer chips and solar cells. Seeking to improve the performance of these technologies, scientists are studying the mechanisms that drive molecules to uniformly stack together in layers—a process called crystalline thin film growth. Now, a new research technique could help scientists understand this growth process better than ever before.
Researchers from the University of Vermont, Boston University, and the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Brookhaven National Laboratory have demonstrated a new experimental capability for watching thin film growth in real-time. Using the National Synchrotron Light Source II (NSLS-II)—a DOE Office of Science User Facility at Brookhaven—the researchers were able to produce a “movie” of thin film growth that depicts the process more accurately than traditional techniques can. Their research was published on June 14, 2019 in Nature Communications.

>Read more on the NSLS-II website

Image: Co-authors Peco Myint (BU) and Jeffrey Ulbrandt (UVM) are shown at NSLS-II’s CHX beamline, where the research was conducted.

 

Diamond’s 8000th publication: The future of solar cells

Diamond’s 8000th publication: The future of solar cells

A collaboration between researchers in the UK and China recently led to the publication of the 8000th research article describing cutting edge science carried out at Diamond Light Source. Professor David Lidzey from the University of Sheffield and his collaborator Professor Tao Wang from Wuhan University of Technology published their findings in Nano Energy with implications for the future of solar cells.
Fullerene molecules known as “Bucky balls” have been used as charge acceptors in solar cells for a long time. Researchers used Diamond Light Source to investigate new acceptor molecules that would be cheaper to manufacture. They discovered that depending on the molecule and the way that it was blended with polymers, they were able to see a significant efficiency increase over traditional compositions. The added efficiency came from the fact that the new compositions could absorb light over a broader wavelength range. This means that if used in solar cells, they will be able to use more of the sun’s light than is possible using current materials.
The added efficiency comes from the molecules themselves as well as the way they are blended and cast. Using the GWAXS technique at Diamond, the researchers found that flat acceptor molecules were able to stack very efficiently and that the production method allowed them to self-organise on nanometre length scales allowing aggregates to form that extend the wavelengths that can be absorbed.

>Read more on the Diamond Light Source website

Image: A representation of a “bucky ball” or fullerene molecule, commonly used as charge acceptors in solar panels.

Natural defense against red tide toxin found in bullfrogs

Natural defense against red tide toxin found in bullfrogs

A team led by Berkeley Lab faculty biochemist Daniel Minor has discovered how a protein produced by bullfrogs binds to and inhibits the action of saxitoxin, the deadly neurotoxin made by cyanobacteria and dinoflagellates that causes paralytic shellfish poisoning.
The findings, published this week in Science Advances, could lead to the first-ever antidote for the compound, which blocks nerve signaling in animal muscles, causing death by asphyxiation when consumed in sufficient quantities.
“Saxitoxin is among the most lethal natural poisons and is the only marine toxin that has been declared a chemical weapon,” said Minor, who is also a professor at the UCSF Cardiovascular Research Institute. About one thousand times more potent than cyanide, saxitoxin accumulates in tissues and can therefore work its way up the food chain – from the shellfish that eat the microbes to fish, turtles, marine mammals, and us.

>Read more on the ALS website

Image: A photo illustration showing the atomic structures of saxiphilin and saxitoxin, a red tide algal bloom, and an American bullfrog (R. catesbeiana).
Credit: Daniel L. Minor, Jr., and Deborah Stalford/Berkeley Lab.

Beryllium configuration with neighbouring oxygen atoms revealed

Beryllium configuration with neighbouring oxygen atoms revealed

High-pressure experiments prove 50-year-old theoretical prediction.

In high-pressure experiments at DESY’s X-ray light source PETRA III, scientists have observed a unique configuration of beryllium for the first time: At pressures nearly a million times the average atmospheric pressure, beryllium in a phosphate crystal acquires six neighbouring atoms instead of the usual four. This six-fold coordination had been predicted by theory more than 50 ago, but could not be observed until now in inorganic compounds. DESY scientist Anna Pakhomova and her collaborators report their results in the journal Nature Communications.
“Originally, chemistry textbooks stated that elements like beryllium from the second period of the periodic table could never have more than four neighbours, due to their electron configuration”, explains Pakhomova. “Then around 50 years ago theorists discovered that higher coordinations could actually be possible, but these have adamantly evaded experimental proof in inorganic compounds.” Inorganic compounds are typically those without carbon – apart from a few exceptions like carbon dioxide and carbon monoxide.

>Read more on the PETRA III at DESY website

Image: Transformation of the usual fourfold coordination of beryllium to five- and sixfold with increasing pressure. (Credit: DESY, Anna Pakhomova)

Helping people to hear

Helping people to hear

Using advanced techniques at the Canadian Light Source (CLS) at the University of Saskatchewan, scientists have created three-dimensional images of the complex interior anatomy of the human ear, information that is key to improving the design and placement of cochlear implants.
“With the images, we can now see the relationship between the cochlear implant electrode and the soft tissue, and we can design electrodes to better fit the cochlea,” said Dr. Helge Rask-Andersen, senior professor at Uppsala University in Sweden.
“The technique is fantastic and we can now assess the human inner ear in a very detailed way.”
The cochlea is the part of the inner ear that looks like a snail shell and receives sound in the form of vibrations. In cases of hearing loss, cochlear implants are used to bypass damaged parts of the ear and directly stimulate the auditory nerve. The implant generates signals that travel via the auditory nerve to the brain and are recognized as sound.
By imaging the soft and bony structures of the inner ear with implant electrodes in place, Rask-Andersen said the researchers were able to discover what the auditory nerve looks like in three dimensions, and to learn how cochlear implant electrodes behave inside the cochlea. This is very important when cochlear implants are considered for people with limited hearing.

>Read more on the Canadian Light Source website

Image: the inner ear

Simulating earthquakes and meteorite impacts in the lab

Simulating earthquakes and meteorite impacts in the lab

New device squeezes samples with 1.6 billion atmospheres per second.

A new super-fast high-pressure device at DESY’s X-ray light source PETRA III allows scientists to simulate and study earthquakes and meteorite impacts more realistically in the lab. The new-generation dynamic diamond anvil cell (dDAC), developed by scientists from Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL), DESY, the European Synchrotron Radiation Source ESRF, and the universities of Oxford, Bayreuth and Frankfurt/Main, compresses samples faster than any similar device before. The instrument can turn up the pressure at a record rate of 1.6 billion atmospheres per second (160 terapascals per second, TPa/s) and can be used for a wide range of dynamic high-pressure studies. The developers present their new device, that has already proven its capabilities in various materials experiments, in the journal Review of Scientific Instruments.
“For more than half a century the diamond anvil cell or DAC has been the primary tool to create static high pressures to study the physics and chemistry of materials under those extreme conditions, for example to explore the physical properties of materials at the center of the Earth at 3.5 million atmospheres,” said lead author Zsolt Jenei from LLNL. To simulate fast dynamic processes like earthquakes and asteroid impacts more realistically with high compression rates in the lab, Jenei’s team, in collaboration with DESY scientists, now developed a new generation of dynamically driven diamond anvil cell (dDAC), inspired by the pioneering original LLNL design, and coupled it with the new fast X-ray diffraction setup of the Extreme Conditions Beamline P02.2 at PETRA III.

>Read more on the PETRA III at DESY website

Image: Artist’s impression of a meteorite impact.
Credit: NASA

European XFEL plans ultrahigh-speed network connection to Poland

European XFEL plans ultrahigh-speed network connection to Poland

Data from experiments will also be processed at partner institute NCBJ in Otwock-Świerk.

European XFEL and the National Center for Nuclear Research (NCBJ) in Otwock-Świerk near Warsaw plan to establish the first ultrahigh-speed connection for research data between Germany and Poland. The aim is for the new Supercomputing Center at NCBJ to be used for the processing and analysis of data generated at the European XFEL. The dedicated network connection between the DESY Computer Center, which hosts European XFEL’s primary data, and NCBJ will feature a data transfer rate of 100 gigabits per second (Gbit/s). With the exception of the higher-speed connection to DESY, that is approximately 100 times faster than the current typical Internet connection between European XFEL and other research institutes, through which the transfer of data for an average experiment at the facility would take about a month. In comparison, household high-speed Internet connections can typically manage about 250 Mbit/s for a download. This makes this new connection at least 400 times faster.
For the installation of the new high-speed data connection, the German National Research and Education Network (DFN), the Supercomputing and Networking Center at the Institute for Bioorganic Chemistry in Poznań (PSNC), the Research and Academic Computer Network National Research Institute (NASK), and Deutsches Elektronen-Synchrotron (DESY) will also take part alongside European XFEL and NCBJ. At the end of May this year, the partners signed a Memorandum of Understanding that will serve as the basis and starting point for establishing the new high-speed connection. It can largely be built on existing technical infrastructure, but certain specific components will have to be added. For example, the connection between the German and Polish research networks will be enabled by the European University Viadrina in Frankfurt an der Oder and the neighbouring Polish city of Słubice.

>Read more on the European XFEL website

Image: At European XFEL at peak user operation times, up to a petabyte of data can be produced per week.
Credit:  European XFEL / Jan Hosan

Catalyst improves cycling life of magnesium/sulfur batteries

Catalyst improves cycling life of magnesium/sulfur batteries

Comprising earth-abundant elements, cathodes made of magnesium/sulfur compounds could represent the next step in battery technology. However, despite being dendrite free and having a high theoretical energy density compared with lithium batteries, magnesium/sulfur batteries have suffered from high polarization and extremely limited recharging capabilities. To gain electrochemical insights into magnesium/sulfur batteries during charge–discharge cycles, researchers used the Advanced Light Source (ALS) to investigate and optimize battery chemistry.

The in situ x-ray absorption spectroscopy (XAS) capabilities at ALS Beamlines 5.3.1 and 10.3.2 provided information on the oxidation state of sulfur under real operating conditions. The group found that the conversion of sulfur in the first discharging process was divided into three stages: formation of MgS8 and MgS4 at a fast reaction rate, reduction of MgS4 to Mg3S8, and a sluggish further reduction of Mg3S8 to MgS. The in situ XAS analysis revealed that Mg3S8 and MgS are more electrochemically inert and cannot revert to the active forms of sulfur, thereby dramatically reducing the battery’s cycling life.

>Read more on the ALS website

Image: Efforts to develop magnesium/sulfur batteries have been stymied by a loss of capacity after the first discharging process. In situ XAS revealed the accumulation of Mg3S8 and MgS during the discharging process, which are inert forms of the magnesium/sulfur compounds. Introducing a titanium-sulfide catalyst activated the compounds, reversing the chemical mechanism so that the battery could be recharged multiple times.

 

Publication of the first scientific paper

Publication of the first scientific paper

June 1, 2019 marks a historically important accomplishment for SESAME, where the very first scientific paper presenting results using data obtained at SESAME’s X-ray absorption fine structure/X-ray fluorescence (XAFS/XRF) spectroscopy beamline was published in Applied Catalysis B: Environmental.

S: Bac et al. Applied Catalysis B: Environmental, 259, 2019, 117808 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0926337319305545

Synchrotron measurements performed at SESAME were carried out by the research group of Associate Professor Emrah Ozensoy (Bilkent University Chemistry Department and UNAM-National Nanotechnology Center Ankara, Turkey), in collaboration with the research group of Professor Ahmet Kerim Avcı (Boğaziçi University, Chemical Engineering Department, Istanbul, Turkey) and Dr Messaoud Harfouche (XAFS/XRF beamline scientist, SESAME, Allan, Jordan).
The paper entitled Exceptionally active and stable catalysts for CO2 reforming of glycerol to syngas is the outcome of a measurement campaign at SESAME in July 2018 and focuses on the catalytic valorization of a biomass waste material (i.e. glycerol) to obtain synthesis gas (or syngas, CO + H2). Glycerol is an important renewable feedstock for the large-scale catalytic production of synthetic liquid fuels through a process called Fischer-Tropsch synthesis. In the words of Emrah Ozensoy “XAFS/XRF experiments performed at SESAME were instrumental for us to understand the electronic structure of the Co/CoOx and Ni/NiOx nanoparticles serving as the catalytic active sites. Particularly, complementing the experimental data acquired in our labs with the results obtained at SESAME allowed us to examine the nature of the fresh catalysts and compare them with that of the spent catalysts obtained after the catalytic reaction, revealing crucial molecular-level insights regarding the catalytic aging and poisoning mechanisms.”

>Read more on the SESAME website

Image: Kerem Emre Ercan Some of the researchers who contributed to the publication and data acquisition (from left to right, Yusuf Koçak, Kerem E. Ercan, and M. Fatih Genişel)

Feeling the strain: shear effects in magnetoelectric switching

Feeling the strain: shear effects in magnetoelectric switching

Diamond uncovers unexpected complexity that may aid magnetoelectric data storage devices.

The high resolution and wealth of data provided by an experiment at Diamond can lead to unexpected discoveries. The piezoelectric properties of the ceramic perovskite PMN-PT (0.68Pb(Mg1/3Nb2/3)O3–0.32PbTiO3) are widely used in commercial actuators, where the strain that is generated varies continuously with applied voltage. However, if the applied voltage is cycled appropriately then there are discontinuous changes of strain. These discontinuous changes can be used to drive magnetic switching in a thin overlying ferromagnet, permitting magnetic information to be written electrically. An international team of researchers used beamline I06 to investigate a ferromagnetic film of nickel when it served as a sensitive strain gauge for single-crystal PMN-PT. Their initial interpretation of the results suggested that ferroelectric domain switching rotated the magnetic domains in the film by the expected angle of 90°, but a closer examination revealed the true picture to be more complex. Their work, recently published in Nature Materials, shows that the ferroelectric domain switching rotated the magnetic domains in the film by considerably less than 90° due to an accompanying shear strain. The findings offer both a challenge and an opportunity for the design of next-generation data storage devices, and will surely be relevant if the work is extended to explore the electrically driven manipulation of more complex magnetic textures.

>Read more on the Diamond Light Source website

Image: Magnetic vector map (50 µm field of view) describing the magnetisation of a Ni film while applying 50 V across the ferroelectric substrate of PMN-PT. The colour wheel identifies magnetisation direction. Yellow and brown denotes regions whose magnetisation was unaffected by the voltage.

Study offers new target for antibiotic resistant bacteria

Study offers new target for antibiotic resistant bacteria

As antibiotic resistance rises, the search for new antibiotic strategies has become imperative. In 2013, the Centers for Disease Control estimated that antibiotic resistant bacteria cause at least 2 million infections and 23,000 deaths a year in the U.S.; a recent report raised the likely mortality rate to 162,044.
New Cornell research on an enzyme in bacteria essential to making DNA offers a new pathway for targeting pathogens. In “Convergent Allostery in Ribonucleotide Reductase,” published June 14 in Nature Communications, researchers used the MacCHESS research stations at the Cornell High Energy Synchrotron Source (CHESS) to reveal an unexpected mechanism of activation and inactivation in the protein ribonucleotide reductase (RNR).

Understanding the “switch” that turns RNR off provides a possible means to shut off the reproduction of harmful bacteria.
RNRs take ribonucleotides, the building blocks of RNA, and convert them to deoxyribonucleotides, the building blocks of DNA. In all organisms, the regulation of RNRs involves complex mechanisms, and for good reason: These mechanisms prevent errors and dangerous mutations.

>Read more on the CHESS website

Image: William Thomas, a graduate student in the field of chemistry and chemical biology, collects data on ribonucleotide reductase.

How morphing materials store information

How morphing materials store information

Experiments at SLAC’s X-ray laser reveal in atomic detail how two distinct liquid phases in these materials enable fast switching between glassy and crystalline states that represent 0s and 1s in memory devices.

Instead of flash drives, the latest generation of smart phones uses materials that change physical states, or phases, to store and retrieve data faster, in less space and with more energy efficiency. When hit with a pulse of electricity or optical light, these materials switch between glassy and crystalline states that represent the 0s and 1s of the binary code used to store information.
Now scientists have discovered how those phase changes occur on an atomic level.
Researchers from European XFEL and the University of Duisburg-Essen in Germany, working in collaboration with researchers at the Department of Energy’s SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory, led X-ray laser experiments at SLAC that collected more than 10,000 snapshots of phase-change materials transforming from a glassy to a crystalline state in real time.

>Read more on the LCLS at SLAC website

Image: The research team after performing experiments at SLAC’s Linac Coherent Light Source X-ray laser.
Credit: Klaus Sokolowski-Tinten/University of Duisburg-Essen)

Please read also the article published on the EUXFEL website:
Rigid bonds enable new data storage technology

Electric dipoles form chiral skyrmions

Electric dipoles form chiral skyrmions

Control of such phenomena could one day lead to low-power, nonvolatile data storage as well as to high-performance computers.

A group of researchers, led by scientists from Berkeley Lab’s Materials Sciences Division and UC Berkeley’s Materials Science and Engineering Department, set out to find ways to control how heat moves through materials. They fabricated a material with alternating layers of strontium titanate, which is an electrical insulator, and lead titanate, a ferroelectric material with a natural electrical polarization that can be reversed by the application of an external electric field.

When the group took the material to Berkeley Lab’s Molecular Foundry for atomic-resolution scanning transmission electron microscope (STEM) measurements, however, they found something completely unexpected: bubble-like formations had appeared throughout the material, even at room temperature.

>Read more on the ALS website

Image: (a) Hard x-ray studies showed the presence of two sets of ordering: regular peaks along the out-of-plane direction (Qz), related to superlattice periodicity (about 12 nm), and satellite peaks in the in-plane direction (Qy), corresponding to the in-plane skyrmion periodicity (about 8 nm). (b) RSXD studies were performed at the in-plane satellite peaks, which correspond to the periodic polarization texture of the skyrmions’ Bloch components. (c) Spectra from a satellite peak for right- (red) and left- (blue) circularly polarized light. (d) The same spectra with background fluorescence subtracted. (e) The difference spectrum shows a clear circular dichroism peak at the titanium L3 t2g edge.