About the lab

The Laboratory for Multiscale materials eXperiments (LMX) focusses on designing novel functional materials in poly- and single crystalline form, as thin films and as multilayers, which are of interest for fundamental research and a wide range of applications from electronics through to optical coatings and sustainable energy, and can be fabricated into nanostructures and devices. Depending on the applications, the thin film thicknesses range from atomic monolayers through to micrometres, and the nanostructures have sub-1 µm lateral dimensions. We create materials with interesting electric, magnetic, optical, chemical and mechanical behaviour, probing their properties with laboratory-based equipment and PSI’s large scale facilities, including x-rays, neutrons and muons. Metallic thin films are deposited with UHV sputtering and evaporation, ceramic and single crystal materials are prepared using solid state synthesis techniques and appropriate furnaces, oxide thin films with pulsed laser deposition and polymers with spin coating and laser ablation.