Data Science

We report on magnetization M(H), dc and ac magnetic susceptibility Χ(T), specific heat C_m(T) and muon spin relaxation (μSR) measurements of the Kitaev honeycomb iridate Cu₂IrO₃ with quenched disorder. In spite of the chemical disorders, we find no indication of spin glass down to 260 mK from the C_m(T) and μSR data.

Plenary Session Featuring The Fred Kavli Distinguished Lectureship in Materials Science:

Tuesday, April 23

8:15 am – 9:30 am

PCC North, 100 Level, Ballroom 120 D

SIM beamline scientist Carlos Vaz was recognized as outstanding referee for providing high quality peer review for the Journal of Materials Chemistry C (Royal Society of Chemistry).

Lithography‐like writing of conducting regions at the interface between SrTiO₃ and amorphous Si using X‐ray irradiation opens ways for spatially controlled functionalities in oxide heterostructures.

Water is a ubiquitous liquid with unique physicochemical properties, whose nature has shaped our planet and life as we know it. Water in restricted geometries has different properties than in bulk. Confinement can prevent low-temperature crystalliza- tion of the molecules into a hexagonal structure and thus create a state of amorphous water. To understand the survival of life at subzero temperatures, it is essential to elucidate this behaviour in the presence of nanoconfining lipidic membranes.

Direct manipulation of the atomic lattice using intense long-wavelength laser pulses has become a viable approach to create new states of matter in complex materials. Conventionally, a high-frequency vibrational mode is driven resonantly by a mid-infrared laser pulse and the lattice structure is modified through indirect coupling of this infrared-active phonon to other, lower-frequency lattice modulations.

In the week of April 1-5 PSI welcomes 20 PhD students and postdocs taking part in the European HERCULES 2019 school on Neutron and Synchrotron Radiation. They will attend lectures and perform two days of practical courses at several beam lines of the Swiss Light Source.

Magnetically coupled nanomagnets have multiple applications in nonvolatile memories, logic gates, and sensors. The most effective couplings have been found to occur between the magnetic layers in a vertical stack. We achieved strong coupling of laterally adjacent nanomagnets using the interfacial Dzyaloshinskii-Moriya interaction. This coupling is mediated by chiral domain walls between out-of-plane and in-plane magnetic regions and dominates the behavior of nanomagnets below a critical size.

In order to achieve high-brillance and ultra-short FEL pulses, a flat current profile of the electron bunch is required. We achieve this by temporal shaping of the photo-cathode laser. From a femtosecond Gaussian pulse, we produce a picosecond long, flat-top laser pulse. At low charge, the photo-cathode laser pulse temporal profile is directly transferred into the electron bunch temporal profile.

LNO has just installed a new CEP-capable mid-IR source for SiwssFEL experiments. The new source will enable a new class of experiments focused on understanding the unique properties of nonequilibrium driven states.

The Einstein–de Haas effect, first demonstrated more than a century ago, provides an intriguing link between magnetism and rotation in ferromagnetic materials. An international team led by ETH physicist Steven Johnson now established that the effect has also a central role in ultrafast processes that happen at the sub-picosecond timescale — and thus deliver fresh insight into materials that might form the basis for novel devices.

Lithium ion batteries (LIB) are essential in modern everyday life, with increasing interest in enhancing their performance and lifetime. Secondary particles of Li-rich cathode material were examined with correlated ptychographic X-ray tomography and diffraction microscopy at different stages of cycling to probe the aging mechanism.

Light alkanes are abundantly available and cheap resources that are often burned at oil wells because of the missing infrastructure for valorization. Novel technologies are needed for their selective functionalization to use natural gas as an energy vector in the transition between the oil and the renewables era. Catalytic oxyhalogenation may unlock the transformation of cheap and abundant alkanes into commodities. When chlorine-based reactions are compared with bromine, improved selectivities above an iron catalyst arise from surface-confinement of the reaction mechanism in the case of chlorine as halogen.

To date the electrochemical activity of battery materials was always relying in the oxidation/reduction of cationic redox (change of oxidation state of transition metals generally). However, recently, it was established in new cathode materials (so call Li-rich cathode) that the oxygen from the crystal lattice might also play the role of anionic redox center leading to enhance then the specific charge of battery materials.

A new compact von Hamos spectrometer for tender x-rays (current energy range 2.25-4.5 keV), is now available for emission spectroscopy. This spectrometer allows analyzing the energetic composition of fluorescent light from the sample. It provides research opportunities for emission spectroscopy, and RIXS on the K (P-Sc), L (Zr-Cs) and M (Ir-Fr) absorption edges.

Niéli’s paper is accepted in the Journal of Physical Chemistry Letters! We use X-ray absorption spectroscopy and X-ray magnetic circular dichroism to watch directly how the Co and Fe ions in a molecular cube change their oxidation states and turn from diamagnetic into paramagnetic units upon light irradiation.