Tag: copper atoms

SLAC researchers uncover copper’s surprising melting behavior at extreme temperatures

SLAC researchers uncover copper’s surprising melting behavior at extreme temperatures

Finding provides insights into design for heat-resistant fusion chamber.

Key takeaways:
  • Researchers used SLAC’s electron camera to watch copper atoms melt in real time. 
  • The team uncovered a key parameter that allowed the copper’s crystal lattice to deteriorate slowly instead of collapsing as predicted. 
  • By combining imaging with molecular dynamics simulations, researchers hope to uncover promising materials for fusion energy. 

Future fusion power plants aim to recreate the heart of a star here on Earth to power our future energy needs. While the core fusion plasma will burn at hundreds of millions of degrees, the surrounding structural components must handle sudden, punishing heat loads that rival the extreme temperatures faced by spacecraft upon reentry into Earth’s atmosphere. Copper and its alloys are primary candidates for handling these intense heat fluctuations, making it vital to understand exactly how the metal behaves when pushed to its melting point. 

Now researchers at the Department of Energy’s SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory and collaborators have captured an exquisitely detailed, step-by-step look at copper atoms as they underwent extreme thermal heating. Published in Nature Communications, the results revealed a key parameter that allowed copper’s crystal lattice to melt steadily, rather than collapse instantaneously as earlier simulations predicted. 

Read more on the SLAC website

New imaging technique could shed light on individual molecules

New imaging technique could shed light on individual molecules


An international research team has succeeded for the first time in using X-rays for an imaging technique that exploits a particular quantum property of light. The research team, led by Henry Chapman, leading scientist at DESY and professor at Universität Hamburg, used very intense X-ray pulses from the European XFEL to generate fluorescence from copper atoms. By measuring two photons from the emitted fluorescence almost simultaneously, scientists can obtain images of the copper atoms. The research, published in Physical Review Letters, could enable imaging of individual large molecules.

The atomic structures of materials and large molecules such as proteins are usually determined using X-ray crystallography, which relies on “coherent” X-ray scattering. Undesirable incoherent processes like fluorescence emission, however, can dominate the measurements, adding a featureless fog or background to the measured data. In the 1950s, astronomers Robert Hanbury Brown and Richard Twiss coined a method called “intensity interferometry”, that can extract structural information through the ‘incoherent’ fog. The method exploits the quantum mechanical properties of light, and opened the door to new understanding of light.

Read more on the European XFEL website

Image: The sum of over 58 million correlations of X-ray fluorescence snapshots is shown in the left insert, which was analysed by methods of coherent diffractive imaging to produce a high-resolution image of the source – here two illuminated spots in a spinning copper disk. Right insert: Reconstructed fluorescence emitter distribution at the copper disc with the two beam spots clearly visible.

Credit: DESY, Fabian Trost