Modulated excitation Raman spectroscopy of vanadia-based catalysts
By combining modulated excitation and Raman spectroscopy, we obtained mechanistic insights that go beyond what is currently achievable with Raman experiments under steady-state conditions.
Floating islands to convert sunlight into energy
A recent paper published in PNAS and highlighted by CNN proposes creating islands to produce a liquid fuel (methanol) by recycling atmospheric CO2.
First Demonstration of Sub-femtosecond X-ray Pulses at SwissFEL
We have produced ultra-short X-ray FEL pulses at SwissFEL by strongly compressing low-charge electron beams. Single-shot spectral measurements with only a single mode (see the figure below) indicate a pulse duration well below one femtosecond (detailed analysis on the exact pulse duration is ongoing).
In fresh air and in smog
PSI researchers drill through millennia-old glacier ice in the high mountains and analyse the world's highest particulate concentrations in Delhi, India. They are helping to address questions regarding climate change and to reduce air pollution.
The Mu3e collaboration grieves for Kirk Arndt
We lost a very good friend and wonderful colleague.
Ausflug der Polymechaniklernenden zur Chronoswiss und zum Lasertag
Am Freitag 07.06.2019 haben alle Lernenden Polymechaniker und zwei Ausbildner an einem Teamevent teilgenommen, welches durch das Bussengeld der Lernenden finanziert wurde. Bei diesem Ausflug haben wir die Firma Chronoswiss besucht und anschliessend Lasertag gespielt. Der Ausflug wurde von einem Lernenden organisiert.
Testing the energy system of the future today, as realistically as possible
With the kick-off of the ReMaP project, companies have another opportunity to test their vision for the energy system of the future now. PSI's ESI platform helps to make better and more intelligent use of renewable energy in the future.
Phase transition in the cuprates from a magnetic-field-free stiffness meter viewpoint
A method to measure the superconducting (SC) stiffness tensor ρs, without subjecting the sample to external magnetic field, is applied to La1.875Sr0.125CuO4. The method is based on the London equation J=-ρsA, where J is the current density and A is the vector potential which is applied in the SC state.
New material with magnetic shape memory
PSI researchers have developed a material whose shape memory is activated through magnetism. Application areas for this new kind of composite material include, for example, medicine, space flight, electronics, and robotics.
Magnetically Addressable Shape-Memory and Stiffening in a Composite Elastomer
With a specific stimulus, shape‐memory materials can assume a temporary shape and subsequently recover their original shape, a functionality that renders them relevant for applications in fields such as biomedicine, aerospace, and wearable electronics. Shape‐memory in polymers and composites is usually achieved by exploiting a thermal transition to program a temporary shape and subsequently recover the original shape.
Multidimensional Characterization of Mixed Ligand Nanoparticles Using Small Angle Neutron Scattering
The properties of ligand protected gold nanoparticles are determined by the synergistic interplay of their structural components, including the metal core, the ligand shell, and the solvation layer. However, the simultaneous characterization of all these components remains a major challenge given their disparate chemical nature.
Park Innovaare: Financing of new Campus is secured
After an intensive round of negotiations, Park Innovaare concluded an investment agreement with CPV/CAP Pensionskasse Coop for the realization of the new buildings. With this agreement, Park Innovaare has come another step closer to realizing its goal: a state-of-the-art infrastructure of about 38’000 sqm next to the Paul Scherrer Institute PSI that is ideal for industrial R&D projects.
High-numerical-aperture optics is key to ultra-fast tomographic microscopy
A novel high-numerical-aperture macroscope optics dedicated to high-temporal and high-spatial resolution X-ray tomographic microscopy is available at TOMCAT. Coupled with the in-house developed GigaFRoST camera, this highly efficient imaging setup enables tomographic microscopy studies at 20 Hz and beyond, opening up new possibilities in tomographic investigations of dynamic processes. A detailed characterization of the macroscope performance was published in Journal of Synchrotron Radiation on May 21, 2019.
High-numerical-aperture optics is key to ultra-fast tomographic microscopy
A novel high-numerical-aperture macroscope optics dedicated to high-temporal and high-spatial resolution X-ray tomographic microscopy is available at TOMCAT. Coupled with the in-house developed GigaFRoST camera, this highly efficient imaging setup enables tomographic microscopy studies at 20 Hz and beyond, opening up new possibilities in tomographic investigations of dynamic processes. A detailed characterization of the macroscope performance was published in Journal of Synchrotron Radiation on May 21, 2019.
Kondo screening in a charge-insulating spinon metal
The Kondo effect, an eminent manifestation of many-body physics in condensed matter, is traditionally explained as exchange scattering of conduction electrons on a spinful impurity in a metal. The resulting screening of the impurity's local moment by the electron Fermi sea is characterized by a Kondo temperature TK, below which the system enters a strongly coupled regime.
From semiconductors to quantum technologies symposium
While information technology over the last 50 years has been based on conventional semiconductor electronics, future technologies – aiming to enhance the performance of computers, sensors and to secure data communication for the future internet – will use the quantum origins of nature.
This symposium highlighted the opportunities for the traditional semiconductor materials to remain the platform on which also the new quantum technologies will build on. The symposium, in part a celebration of the career of PSI Quantum Technologies group leader Hans Sigg, was held at ETHZ and included notable speakers both local and international, Gabriel Aeppli (PSI, ETHZ & EPFL), Jérôme Faist & Klaus Ensslin (ETHZ), Theo Rasing (RU Nijmegen), Giordano Scappucci (QuTech-TU Delft) and Klaus von Klitzing (MPI Stuttgart).
On isothermality in some commonly used plug flow reactors for X-ray based investigations of catalysts
Understand reactor design and characterize their behavior to avoid unwanted sources of error in determining structure function relationships in catalysis.
Das PSI und das KfC arbeiten an den Themen des Frauen*streiks
Der Frauen*streik möchte wichtige Anliegen voranbringen, darunter sind Lohngleichheit, die gerechte Verteilung von Betreuungsaufgaben und der Schutz vor Diskriminierung und sexueller Belästigung.
Das PSI und das Komitee für Chancengleichheit am PSI arbeiten auch an diesen Themen. Eine externe Analyse der GFO Unternehmensberatung gemeinsam mit der Universität Sankt Gallen bestätigte vor einigen Jahren die vollständige Lohngleichheit unter Berücksichtigung von Funktionsstufen und Erfahrungsjahren.
Christoph Bostedt named APS Fellow
Christoph Bostedt, Head of the Laboratory for Femtochemistry, was named APS Felllow. He received his fellowship certificate at at the 50th Annual Meeting of the APS Division of Atomic, Molecular and Optical Physics (DAMOP) APS Meeting in Milwaukee.
Article published in Nature Catalysis - view on misconceptions and challenges in methane-to-methanol
Manoj Ravi, PhD student in the van Bokhoven group, warned the community about all the misconceptions and pitfalls he encountered while studying the conversion of methane to methanol and made it into Nature Catalysis!
ESRF Scientific Highlight 2018
Our work on active site structure in mordenite has been featured as one of the Scientific Highlights of 2018 by the European Synchrotron Radiation Facility (ESRF).
Congratulations to Debiopharm
Debiopharm – a Swiss pharma company that has licensed-in one of PSIs developments -a compound with high potential for cancer diagnosis & therapy has been nominated for the “2019/2020 Swiss Biotech Sucess Stories Awards”
From whole organ imaging down to single cell analysis
Researchers from the TOMCAT beamline, University College London (UCL), IDIBAPS and Universitat Pompeu Fabra (UPF) have developed a methodology that allows the multiscale analysis of the structural changes resulting from remodelling cardiovascular diseases, from whole organ down to single-cell level. This methodology has been published as an article in the journal Scientific Reports on May 6th 2019.
From whole organ imaging down to single cell analysis
Researchers from the TOMCAT beamline, University College London (UCL), IDIBAPS and Universitat Pompeu Fabra (UPF) have developed a methodology that allows the multiscale analysis of the structural changes resulting from remodelling cardiovascular diseases, from whole organ down to single-cell level. This methodology has been published as an article in the journal Scientific Reports on May 6th 2019.
New material also reveals new quasiparticles
Researchers at PSI have investigated a novel crystalline material at the Swiss Light Source SLS that exhibits electronic properties never seen before. Among other things, they were able to detect a new type of quasiparticle: so-called Rarita-Schwinger fermions.
Schweizer Jugend forscht 2019
Unser Lernende Pius S., Elektroniker im 4. Lehrjahr, nahm mit Kollegen am Nationalen Wettbewerb von "Schweizer Jugend forscht" teil und erhielten das Prädikat "hervorragend". Wir sind sehr stolz auf diese Leistung und gratulieren Pius herzlich!
An iodine polymeric chain with tunable conductivity
The progressive hydrostatic compression of I2 and I3- units in an organic salt lead to a homoatomic polymeric chain. As the I---I distance collapses the covalent character of the interaction becomes more relevant, leading to a pressure-tunable increased conductivity.
Elementary excitation in the spin-stripe phase in quantum chains
Elementary excitations in condensed matter capture the complex many-body dynamics of interacting basic entities in a simple quasiparticle picture. In magnetic systems the most established quasiparticles are magnons, collective excitations that reside in ordered spin structures, and spinons, their fractional counterparts that emerge in disordered, yet correlated spin states.
New study gives compelling evidence that tungsten diphosphide is a type-II Weyl semimetal
Researchers at NCCR MARVEL have combined first principles calculations with soft X-ray angle-resolved photoemission spectroscopy to examine tungsten diphosphide’s electronic structure, characterizing its Weyl nodes for the very first time. In agreement with density functional theory calculations, the results revealed two pairs of Weyl nodes lying at different binding energies. The observation of the Weyl nodes, as well as the tilted cone-like dispersions in the vicinity of the nodal points, provides compelling evidence that the material is a robust type-II Weyl semimetal with broken Lorentz invariance. This is as MARVEL researchers predicted two years ago. The research has been published in Physical Review Letters as an Editor's Suggestion.
Berufsbildnerabend 2019
Die Berufsbildnerinnen und Berufsbildner mit ihren Partnern und Partnerinnen fuhren am Donnerstag, 2. Mai nach Böttstein, wo wir an einer interessanten Führung im Axporama(link is external) teilnehmen konnten. Das abschliessende Spiel zur Stromversorgung der Schweiz absolvierten wir nicht wie erhofft. Mit vielen Eindrücken fuhren wir danach nach Mandach. Im Restaurant Hirschen(link is external) durften wir ein feines Essen in gemütlicher Runde geniessen.