Tag: nanoscience

A VISION for an AI Lab Partner

A VISION for an AI Lab Partner

Brookhaven Lab team pioneers interactive virtual companion to accelerate discoveries at scientific user facilities

UPTON, N.Y. — A team of scientists at the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Brookhaven National Laboratory have dreamed up, developed, and tested a novel voice-controlled artificial intelligence (AI) assistant designed to break down everyday barriers for busy scientists. 

Known as the Virtual Scientific Companion, or VISION, the generative AI tool – developed by researchers at the Lab’s Center for Functional Nanomaterials (CFN) with support from experts at the National Synchrotron Light Source II (NSLS-II) — offers an opportunity to bridge knowledge gaps at complex instruments, carry out more efficient experiments, save scientists’ time, and overall, accelerate scientific discovery.

The idea is that a user simply has to tell VISION in plain language what they’d like to do at an instrument and the AI companion, tailored to that instrument, will take on the task — whether it’s running an experiment, launching data analysis, or visualizing results. The Brookhaven team recently shared details about VISION in a paper published in Machine Learning: Science and Technology.

“I’m really excited about how AI can impact science and it’s something we as the scientific community should definitely explore,” said Esther Tsai, a scientist in the AI-Accelerated Nanoscience group at CFN. “What we can’t deny is that brilliant scientists spend a lot of time on routine work. VISION acts as  an assistant that scientists and users can talk to for answers to basic questions about the instrument capability and operation.”

VISION highlights the close partnership between CFN and NSLS-II, two DOE Office of Science user facilities at Brookhaven Lab. Together they collaborate with facility users on the setup, scientific planning, and analysis of data from experiments at three NSLS-II beamlines, highly specialized measurement tools that enable researchers to explore the structure of materials using beams of X-rays.

Tsai, inspired to alleviate bottlenecks that come with using NSLS-II’s in-demand beamlines, received a DOE Early Career Award in 2023 to develop this new concept. Tsai now leads the CFN team behind VISION, which has collaborated with NSLS-II beamline scientists to launch and test the system at the Complex Materials Scattering (CMS) beamline at NSLS-II, demonstrating the first voice-controlled experiment at an X-ray scattering beamline and marking progress towards the world of AI-augmented discovery.

“At Brookhaven Lab, we’re not only leading in researching this frontier scientific virtual companion concept, we’re also being hands-on, deploying this AI technique on the experimental floor at NSLS-II and exploring how it can be useful to users,” Tsai said.

Talking to AI for flexible workflows

VISION leverages the growing capabilities of large language models (LLMs), the technology at the heart of popular AI assistants such as ChatGPT.

An LLM is an expansive program that creates text modeled on natural human language. VISION exploits this concept, not just to generate text for answering questions but also to generate decisions about what to do and computer code to drive an instrument. Internally, VISION is organized into multiple “cognitive blocks,” or cogs, each comprising an LLM that handles a specific task. Multiple cogs can be put together to form a capable assistant, with the cogs carrying out work transparently for the scientist.

“A user can just go to the beamline and say, ‘I want to select certain detectors’ or ‘I want to take a measurement every minute for five seconds’ or ‘I want to increase the temperature’ and VISION will translate that command into code,” Tsai said.

Those examples of natural language inputs, whether speech, text, or both, are first fed to VISION’s “classifier” cog, which decides what type of task the user is asking about. The classifier routes to the right cog for the task, such as an “operator” cog for instrument control or “analyst” cog for data analysis.

Then, in just a few seconds, the system translates the input into code that’s passed back to the beamline workstation, which the user can review before executing. On the back end, everything is being run on “HAL,” a CFN server optimized for running AI workloads on graphics processing units.

Read more on BNL website

Image: VISION aims to lead the natural-language-controlled scientific expedition with joint human-AI force for accelerated scientific discovery at user facilities.

Credit: Brookhaven National Laboratory

New electron microscope centre to advance research into structural biology and new materials

New electron microscope centre to advance research into structural biology and new materials

  • This cutting-edge facility will house two high-end electron microscopes: one to determine the structure of large protein complexes and another to study materials at atomic level.
  • Created thanks to the joint effort of several research institutes, the centre is located at the ALBA Synchrotron and will be open to the entire scientific community.
  • Catalan Research and Universities Minister Joaquim Nadal inaugurated the centre, which has received funding from the Catalan Government’s ERDF programme, on 24 February.

The Joint Electron Microscopy Center at ALBA (JEMCA) was created thanks to the collaboration of different research entities to launch a new centre within the ALBA Synchrotron building offering electron microscope services to the scientific community. In specific, eight different partners will be using this centre: the Institute for Molecular Biology of Barcelona (IBMB-CSIC), the Catalan Institute for Nanoscienc and Nanotechnology (ICN2), the Institute for Biomedical Research (IRB Barcelona), the Centre for Genome Regulation (CRG), the Institute for Materials Science of Barcelona (ICMAB-CSIC), the Spanish National Research Council (CSIC), the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona (UAB), and the ALBA Synchrotron. The project definition phase also included the fundamental support of the Barcelona Institute of Science and Technology (BIST).

This is the only facility in all of Spain that allows working with tools that are complementary to the synchrotron light source with the aim of gathering more information in the field of structural biology and materials science.

The centre currently houses two microscopes: the Cryo-TEM, coordinated by the Institute for Molecular Biology of Barcelona (IBMB-CSIC), and the METCAM, coordinated by the Catalan Institute for Nanoscience and Nanotechnology (ICN2).

The Cryo-TEM microscope is key to being able to solve rapidly and with high resolution the protein structures that cannot be analysed with other techniques. This microscope is already being put to use in experiments with an elevated social return. For example, IBMB-CSIC researchers Núria Verdaguer and Pablo Guerra, in collaboration with IRB Barcelona researchers Manuel Palacín and David Aparicio and the spin-off Ona Therapeutics, are analysing a protein involved in metastatic lung cancer as well as the protein’s complex with an antibody of interest for a therapy that targets metastases. The Cryo-TEM is the second microscope of its kind in Spain and represents a great advance for the user community in this field.

Read more on the ALBA website

The Middle East synchrotron officially opens MS beamline

The Middle East synchrotron officially opens MS beamline

The 8th of July 2021 marked the inauguration of SESAME’s Materials Science (MS) beamline. The Ambassador of Switzerland to Jordan, H.E. Mr. Lukas Gasser, along with members of his embassy team, and UNESCO’s Representative to Jordan, Ms. Min Jeong Kim, were welcomed to the inaugural ceremony by the Director General of SESAME, Professor Khaled Toukan, and the Directors of SESAME. 

In his welcoming remarks, Khalid Toukan pointed out that the beamline now allowed the users of SESAME to obtain diffraction data of a quality unparalleled in any laboratory in the region.

The MS beamline is heavily based on the MS X04SA beamline previously in operation at the Swiss Light Source, and its donation to SESAME by the Paul Scherrer Institute (PSI) has resulted in SESAME having a powerful and extremely precise tool to investigate matter at the micro-, nano- and atomic-scale.

A ribbon officially inaugurating the beamline was cut by H.E. Mr. Lukas Gasser and Professor Khaled Toukan, together with Ms. Min Jeong Kim.

Work on the MS beamline had started in 2015, with the adaptation of the design of the MS X04SA beamline to the characteristics of SESAME’s machine. In 2016, after receiving the donation of another major component, a detector from the Swiss company Dectris, execution of the project was fast-tracked, and the installation phase took place between 2017 and 2019, which is when SESAME received a diffractometer for the beamline as a donation from the Diamond Light Source. Upon sourcing the necessary equipment, the MS beam was first delivered to SESAME’s experimental station at the end of 2019. Fine tuning and characterization of its performance continued during the Covid-19 pandemic, and in December 2020, the beamline started hosting its first users. A first paper utilizing data taken at the MS beamline has already been published in a high-impact journal.

Read more on the SESAME website

Image: Cutting the ribbon of the MS Beamline (left to right): the Director General of SESAME, Professor Khaled Toukan, the UNESCO Representative to Jordan Ms. Min Jeong Kim, and the Ambassador of Switzerland to Jordan, H.E. Mr. Lukas Gasser   Note: all picture participants are Covid-19 Vaccinated.

Credit: © SESAME 2021

Focused X-ray beam allows high-resolution nanowire strain mapping

Focused X-ray beam allows high-resolution nanowire strain mapping

A team of researchers from Lund University and Northwestern University in the United States have used the nano focused beam at the NanoMAX beamline to construct a 2D map of the distribution of material strain in individual InP-GaInP heterostructure nanowires. Understanding the strain that forms in heterostructure nanowires is essential for tailoring their electronic properties to applications in electronics and for energy materials.

Semiconductor materials are essential for everything from electronics such as computers and mobile phones to LED-lights and solar cells. Different types of semiconductor materials often need to be combined in a so-called heterostructure to realise the advanced functions required for these devices.

Typically the combination is done by growing layers of one semiconductor material on top of another. However, since the distances between the atoms, the lattice spacing, is different in the different materials, it often leads to mismatch and strain in the materials when they are combined in this way. The mismatch puts a limit on what materials are possible to mix and how thick the layers can be.

Read more on the MAX IV website

Image: NanoMAX at Max IV

A probe of light-harvesting efficiency at the nanoscale

A probe of light-harvesting efficiency at the nanoscale

SCIENTIFIC ACHIEVEMENT

Using time-resolved experiments at the Advanced Light Source (ALS), researchers found a way to count electrons moving back and forth across a model interface for photoelectrochemical cells.

SIGNIFICANCE AND IMPACT

The findings provide real-time, nanoscale insight into the efficiency of nanomaterial catalysts that help turn sunlight and water into fuel through artificial photosynthesis.

Solar-fuel tech goes for gold

In the search for clean-energy alternatives to fossil fuels, one promising solution relies on photoelectrochemical (PEC) cells: water-splitting, artificial-photosynthesis devices that turn sunlight and water into solar fuels such as hydrogen. In just a decade, researchers have achieved great progress in the development of PEC systems made of light-absorbing gold nanoparticles (NPs) attached to a semiconductor film of titanium dioxide (TiO2).

Read more on the Advanced Light Source website

Image: Laser pulses were used to excite electrons in gold nanoparticles (AuNPs) on a titanium dioxide (TiO2) substrate. X-ray pulses were used to count the electrons moving between the nanoparticles and the substrate. (Credit: Oliver Gessner/Berkeley Lab)

Accurate temperature snapshots

Accurate temperature snapshots

The first high energy density experiments pave way for future research

What does it take to accurately measure the temperature of a material which remains in a stable condition for just a fleeting nanosecond (one millionth of a second)? Consider using the high energy density (HED) instrument at European XFEL. And this is what an international team of researchers, with lead researchers from SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory, US, Oxford University, UK, and European XFEL, have done. Establishing methods to accurately measure temperatures in rapidly-evolving, transient systems is important for diverse purposes such as developing materials for spacecraft thermal shields, which face extreme changes in temperature and pressure when re-entering the Earth’s atmosphere, or in the study of the interior of giant planets such as Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune. 

Read more on the European XFEL website

Image: Ulf Zastrau, Group Leader HED at the Experiment Station. Copyright: Jan Scholzel

Captured in the act: Free Electron Laser sheds light on ultrafast relaxation of superfluid helium nanodroplets

Captured in the act: Free Electron Laser sheds light on ultrafast relaxation of superfluid helium nanodroplets

Superfluid He nanodroplets are ideal model systems for studying the photodynamics of weakly-bound nanostructures, both experimentally and theoretically; in most cases, superfluidity results in slow relaxation of energy and angular momentum. Using ultrashort tunable XUV pulses, it is now possible to follow the relaxation dynamics of excited helium nanodroplets in great detail.

The relaxation of photoexcited nanosystems is a fundamental process of light-matter interaction. Depending on the couplings of the internal degrees of freedom, relaxation can be ultrafast, converting electronic energy into atomic motion within a few fs, or slow, if the energy is trapped in a metastable state that decouples from its environment. An international research team from Germany, Spain, Italy, the USA, and the local team at the FERMI free-electron laser (FEL), studied helium nanodroplets resonantly excited by femtosecond extreme-ultraviolet (XUV) pulses from FERMI. The researchers found that, despite their superfluid nature, helium nanodroplets in their lower electronically excited states undergo ultrafast relaxation by forming a void bubble, which eventually bursts at the droplet surface thereby ejecting a single metastable helium atom. These results help understanding how nanoparticles interact with energetic radiation, as happens when single nanoparticles are directly imaged at hard-x-ray FEL facilities.

Read more on the Elettra website

Image: Figure left: Simulated density distribution of a helium nanodroplet shorty after it is excited by an XUV laser pulse (Courtesy by M. Barranco). Figure right: Measured photoelectron spectra showing ultrafast energy relaxation within less than a picosecond.

Nanocrystals arrange themselves to form new lattices

Nanocrystals arrange themselves to form new lattices

Tiny structure that conducts electricity anisotropically offers foundation for new electronic components

Electronic components such as light-emitting diodes or solar cells can never be too minute. The smaller they are, the less power they consume and the wider the range of possible applications. In order to explore smaller and smaller worlds, scientists are constantly on the lookout for new materials with interesting properties. A research team from the University of Tübingen, working with colleagues at DESY and from Russia, has now made such a discovery.

Three-dimensional lattice of nanocrystals and semiconducting molecules. The precise arrangement of the nanocrystals allows current in the form of electrons (e-) to flow in certain directions. Illustration: University of Tübingen, Andre Maier.The scientists attached semiconducting organic molecules to inorganic nanocrystals to form ordered, three-dimensional lattices that have a uniform superstructure and are electrical conductors. “For the first time ever, we were able to determine a correlation between the conductivity and the direction of electrical transport in such lattices made up of nanocrystals,” said Marcus Scheele from the University of Tübingen, one of the team’s two leaders, adding that this is hugely significant in terms of their use in electronic components.

Read more on the DESY website

Image: Three-dimensional lattice of nanocrystals and semiconduction molecules. The prcise arrangement of the nanocrystals allows current in the form of electrons (e-) to flow in certain directions. Illustration: University of Tübingen, Andre Maier.

X-ray beams help seeing inside future nanoscale electronics

X-ray beams help seeing inside future nanoscale electronics

The technological advancement of fourth-generation synchrotrons, pioneered by MAX IV Laboratory, opens research opportunities that were impossible just a few years ago. In a newly published research paper, we get proof of the revolutionary impact that MAX IV’s photons can have for the advancement of nanoelectronics, both in research and for industrial manufacturers.

Thanks to the innovative concept of the multi-band achromats, MAX IV Laboratory has paved the way for fourth-generation synchrotrons and as of now, it is the most brilliant source of X-ray for research. The high coherence and brilliance delivered at MAX IV are giving scientists the tools for performing research previously unachievable in the X-ray spectrum. This potential is highlighted in a new publication centred on investigating innovative non-destructive characterization of embedded nanostructures.

Read more on the MAX IV website

Image: Depiction of the process of nanofocused X-ray beams scattering from a single nanowire transistor. Positively charged particles (+) and negatively charged particles (-) represent charge carriers in a p–n junction (where p–n junction is an interface between p-type and n-type semiconductor materials). Outgoing beams, depicted as white rays, represent scattering from different segments of the device (InAs and GaSb). The bending with arrows represents the strain revealed in the experiment.

Credit: Illustration by Dmitry Dzhigaev, Lund University.

World first for Synchrotron InfraRed Photo-Thermal in Life NanoSciences

World first for Synchrotron InfraRed Photo-Thermal in Life NanoSciences

Measuring drug-induced molecular changes within a cell at sub-wavelength scale

Synchrotron InfraRed Nanospectroscopy has been used for the first time to measure biomolecular changes induced by a drug (amiodarone) within human cells (macrophages) and localized at 100 nanometre scale, i.e. two orders of magnitude smaller than the IR wavelength used as probe. This was achieved at the Multimode InfraRed Imaging and Micro Spectroscopy (MIRIAM) beamline (B22) at Diamond Light Source, the UK’s national synchrotron facility.

This is a major scientific result in Life Sciences shared by an international team made up of researchers from the School of Cancer and Pharmaceutical Science at Kings College London, the Department of Pharmaceutical Technology and Bio-pharmacy at University of Vienna, and the scientists of the MIRIAM B22 beamline at Diamond.

Read more on the Diamond website

Image: Schematic of Synchrotron photo-thermal IR nano-spectroscopy on mammalian cell at beamline B22.

Beyond graphene: monolayer arsenene observed for the first time

Beyond graphene: monolayer arsenene observed for the first time

An article recently published in 2D Materials shows the first experimental evidence of the successful formation of arsenene, an analogue of graphene with noteworthy semiconducting properties.

This material shows a great potential for the development of new nanoelectronics. Crucial sample preparation and electron spectroscopy experiments were performed at the Bloch beamline at MAX IV.

The discovery of graphene, the single-layer carbon honeycomb material worth the Nobel Prize in Physics in 2010, surely has had a revolutionary impact on research. It triggered a whole new field of study within two-dimensional (2D) materials. However, its application in developing new 2D electronics has been hindered by its lack on an intrinsic band gap. Researchers therefore started to turn their attention to other elements in the periodic table and set their eyes on group V, to which arsenic belongs.
“The aim of the study was to show that arsenene can be formed. Our article is the first to report this”, says Roger Uhrberg, professor at Linköping University and spokesperson for the Bloch beamline at MAX IV. Arsenene, a single-layer buckled honeycomb structure of arsenic, had been previously predicted by various theoretical studies, but this is the first experimental observation that verifies its existence.

>Read more on the MAX IV website

Image: A view of the Bloch beamline at MAX IV. The Bloch beamline consists of two branchlines, and is dedicated to high resolution photoelectron spectroscopy, encompassing angle-resolved (ARPES), spin resolved (spin-ARPES) and core-level spectroscopy.

Double X-ray vision helps tuberculosis and osteoporosis research

Double X-ray vision helps tuberculosis and osteoporosis research

Combination measurement shows distribution of metals in biological samples

With an advanced X-ray combination technique, scientists have traced nanocarriers for tuberculosis drugs within cells with very high precision. The method combines two sophisticated scanning X-ray measurements and can locate minute amounts of various metals in biological samples at very high resolution, as a team around DESY scientist Karolina Stachnik reports in the journal Scientific Reports. To illustrate its versatility, the researchers have also used the combination method to map the calcium content in human bone, an analysis that can benefit osteoporosis research.“Metals play key roles in numerous biological processes, from the oxygen transport in our red blood cells and the mineralisation of bones to the detrimental accumulation of metals in nerve cells as seen in diseases like Alzheimer’s,” explains Stachnik who works in the Center for Free-Electron Laser Science CFEL at DESY. High-energy X-rays make metals light up in fluorescence, a method that is very sensitive even to tiny amounts. “However, the X-ray fluorescence measurements usually do not show the ultrastructure of a cell, for example,” says DESY scientist Alke Meents who led the research. “If you want to exactly locate the metals within your sample, you have to combine the measurements with an imaging technique.” The ultrastructure comprises the details of the cell morphology that are not visible under an optical microscope.

>Read More on the DESY Website

Image: Two agglomerates of antibiotic-loaded iron nanocontainers (red) in a macrophage. Credit: Stachnik et al., „Scientific Reports“, CC BY 4.0

Tuneable self-organisation of liquid crystals in nanopores

Tuneable self-organisation of liquid crystals in nanopores

Innovative path to novel materials with adaptive electrical and optical properties

A team of researchers has used X-rays from DESY’s research light source PETRA III to explore the amazingly diverse self-organisation of liquid crystals in nanometre-sized pores. The study, led by Patrick Huber from the Hamburg University of Technology (TUHH), shows how liquid crystals arrange themselves in pores of different sizes, exhibiting different electrical and optical properties. These could be of interest for applications such as sensors and novel optical metamaterials, as the group around first author Kathrin Sentker from TUHH reports in the journal Nanoscale. The research, which Huber presented at the annual DESY Users’ Meeting running until this Friday, will be continued within the framework of the planned Centre for Multiscale Materials Systems (CIMMS), in which TUHH, University of Hamburg, Helmholtz-Zentrum Geesthacht and DESY are involved and for which the Hamburg Science Authority has just approved approximately four million euros funding.

The researchers had studied a special liquid crystal material called HAT6 (2,3,6,7,10,11-hexakis(hexyloxy)triphenylene; C54H84O6), whose single molecules are disc-shaped. Below about 70 degrees Celsius, they arrange themselves into a liquid crystal; by heating to about 100 degrees, the order can be broken. The scientists filled this material into pores in an aluminium oxide substrate and cooled it down. The cylindrical pores were 17 to 160 nanometres (millionths of a millimeter) in diameter, 0.1 millimetres long and situated on a regular, hexagonal lattice.

Read more on the PETRA III website

Image: Simulation of the different orders of the liquid crystal, matching the measurements. Simulation: Marco D. Mazza, Max Planck Institute for dynamics and self-organisation and und Loughborough University

Electronics of future: magnetic properties of InSb-Mn

Electronics of future: magnetic properties of InSb-Mn

The recent volume of “ACS Nano Letters” presented the results of research conducted at the SOLARIS National Synchrotron Radiation Centre and at the Academic Centre for Materials and Nanotechnology of the University of Science and Technology in Kraków.

The research was led by Dr Katarzyna Hnida-Gut and demonstrated that the magnetic properties of indium antimonide nanowires with an addition of manganese (InSb-Mn) can be controlled by the concentration of the dopants. The ground-breaking aspect of this research was that for the first time in the pulse electrosynthesis process in AAO pores (anodic aluminium oxide) high quality InSb-Mn nanowires were obtained, making use of previously determined optimum conditions for the synthesis of the semiconductor indium antimonide.

Some of the measurements conducted as part of the research project were performed using synchrotron radiation at the SOLARIS Centre in Kraków. Thanks to an experiment conducted on PEEM/XAS beamline, it was possible to determine the local structure in the vicinity of manganese atoms. This allowed for the confirmation of the hypothesis that “the manganese atoms in the studied nanowires form small clusters, such as Mn3. It is precisely these clusters that are the source of the magnetic response at room temperature,” explains Dr. Marcin Sikora, one of the co-authors of the paper.

>Read more on the SOLARIS website

Unravelling the growth mechanism of the coprecipitation of iron oxide nanoparticles

Unravelling the growth mechanism of the coprecipitation of iron oxide nanoparticles

Applications involving iron oxide nanoparticles (IONPs) and nanomaterials in general, are expected to provide solutions to many problems in the fields of healthcare, energy and environment. Magnetic nanoparticles (such as IONPs) have been in the exploratory stage for cancer diagnostic (e.g.in the form of magnetic resonance imaging contrast agents) for more than three decades and treatment (e.g.via hypothermia) in the recent decade. However, success stories are rare, partly due to the limited performance of commercially available nanoparticles, related to the particle quality attributes such as size and shape, polydispersity, crystallinity and surface chemistry. Although today’s literature provides many reports on the synthesis of highly complex nanoparticles with superior properties respect the currently approved products, there seems to be a gap to the application of these materials to fully exploit their enhanced capabilities. This is due, at least partly, to obstacles such as low yield and, most importantly, the robustness and reproducibility of the synthesis method. Hence, detailed studies on nanoparticle formation mechanisms are essential to guarantee that successful syntheses are not a “one-off” but can be performed and reproduced at various research institutions at small to large scales. This work presents such a detailed study, unravelling the growth mechanism of the co-precipitation of IONPs in solution with the aid of synchrotron X-Ray diffraction.

>Read more on the Elettra website

Image: TEM images of the nanoparticles formed after 30 s, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 7 and 10 min of reaction.