Data Science

Max Zoller

SNSF Ambizione Grant for Max Zoller

Max Zoller has been awarded a Swiss National Science Foundation

Ambizione grant with PSI as host institution.

Kreisschule Surbtal 2019

Kreisschule Surbtal 2019

Erste Kontakte zur Berufswahl, was erwartet die Schüler?

Welche Fragen habe sie?

Christopher Mudry

EPFL Adjunct Professorship to Christopher Mudry

Dr Christopher Mudry, who joined PSI in 1999 and is Research Group Leader of the Condensed Matter Theory Group at PSI since 2009, was awarded the title of Adjunct Professor at EPF Lausanne with the following citation. "Dr Christopher Mudry is a highly acclaimed theoretical physicist. He is regarded as one of the world’s leading experts on the quantum field theory of condensed matter and in the rapidly developing field of the topological properties of matter."

Choi PRL

Exotic Low-Energy Excitations Emergent in the Random Kitaev Magnet Cu2IrO3

We report on magnetization M(H), dc and ac magnetic susceptibility Χ(T), specific heat Cm(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 Cm(T) and μSR data.

Dr. Ulrich Hartenstein

Ulrich Hartenstein successfully defends his Ph.D. thesis on track-based alignment of the Mu3e detector

Ulrich Hartenstein developed algorithms for aligning the Mu3e detector using reconstructed particle tracks. Today he successfully defended his thesis at the university of Mainz. 

Berufsbildungsausflug 2019

Berufsbildungsausflug 2019

Der diesjährige Berufsbildungsausflug führte uns in den Kraftreaktor Klettereldorado nach Lenzburg, zum feinen Essen im Kosthaus und weiter zu den süssen Versuchungen von Chocolat Frey AG in Buchs.

Helena van Swygenhoven

Prof. Helena Van Swygenhoven presented the plenary Kavli lecture at the MRS spring meeting 2019

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

Carlos Vaz Selected by the Journal of Materials Chemistry C as Outstanding Reviewer in 2018

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).

Formation of the 2DEG at the Si/SrTiO3 interface

X‐Ray Writing of Metallic Conductivity and Oxygen Vacancies at Silicon/SrTiO3 Interfaces

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.

Salvati et al

Soft biomimetic nanoconfinement promotes amorphous water over ice

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.

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Swissmechanic 2019

Auch im Raume Lenzburg sind wir aktiv und zeigen unsere Berufe den interessierten Jungendlichen.

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Terahertz-driven phonon upconversion in SrTiO3

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.

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Schule trifft Wirtschaft

Wenn Schule und Wirtschaft sich treffen, ja aber dann ...

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HERCULES school 2019 at SLS

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.

2019 Berufsschau Etzgen

Berufsschau Etzgen 2019

Auch im Fricktal sind wir aktiv und zeigen unsere vielseitigen Berufe.

Figure 1: image of the streaked electron bunch temporal profile.

Tailored electron bunch for SwissFEL

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.

Chirally coupled nanomagnets

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.

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Ambizione grant for Max Zoller

Max Zoller, currently at the Physik-Institut of the University of Zurich (UZH), has been awarded a Swiss National Science Foundation Ambizione grant with PSI as host institution. Together with a PhD student he will join the particle theory group (NUM, Laboratory of Particle Physics (LTP)). The research of Max Zoller focuses on the automation of perturbative higher-order calculations. With the Ambizione grant Max will now move to PSI for four years, starting on June 1, 2019.

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New mid-IR pump source for SwissFEL with CEP capabilities installed

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.

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A new twist on a mesmerising story

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.

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Inside Batteries

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.

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LENS launches activities to strengthen European neutron science

The members of the League of advanced European Neutron Sources (LENS) held their first General Assembly and the first Executive Board meeting on 26 March 2019 in Liblice, the Czech Republic. The consortium adopted and signed Statutes detailing the purpose of LENS, guiding the work of the statutory bodies, and laying the framework for Working Groups responsible for the execution of foreseen activities. For the Swiss spallation neutron source SINQ the head of the NUM division Christian Rüegg signed the documents. 

Operando XAS experiment on FeMeDP material cycled between 0.1 – 3.0 V at 100 mA/g. A) XANES spectra of the extreme points of the operando experiment with H4MeDP material as a reference. B) EXAFS spectra in the R-space representation of pristine FeMeDP compared to the in situ measurement of FeMeDP reduced to 0.1 V. (not phase-corrected). C) Contour plot representation of the operando XANES measurement with the shift of the edge energy E0 shown in the graph on the very right

Investigation of anionic redox activities in organic-based electrode for Li-ion batteries

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.

Operando spectroscopy techniques, including PEPICO, unravel the mechanistic origin of halogen-dependent selectivities in oxyhalogenation.

Selective Alkane Functionalization to Olefins

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.

Left panel: View into von Hamos spectrometer. One the left side the cylindrical crystal for the spectrometer is visible. Right panel: Cl K-edge spectrum, taken in total fluorescence and HERFD mode

Von Hamos spectrometer for tender energies open to users

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.

Photoswitching in a Molecular Cube

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.

Elternabend 2019

Elternabend 2019

Über 160 Lernende, Eltern, Berufsbildnerinnen, Berufsbildner und Betreuer besuchten den diesjährigen Elternabend am 20. März. Vorträge, Arbeitsplatzbesichtigungen, Gespräche und ein feines Essen bildeten das Programm.

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DGKK Award for young researchers 2019 for Pascal Puphal

Dr Pascal Puphal (currently a Postdoc at PSI, LMX, Solid State Chemistry Group) has recently been awarded with the DGKK young researcher price from the German Crystal Growth Community on his Ph.D. work performed in the group of Cornelius Krellner at the Geothe University Frankfurt am Main on the topic "Tuning two dimensional Cu-based quantum spin systems". The work covers the stabilization and proof of a 2D dimer structure by Sr substitution in Han Purple and the research of novel kagome materials of the prominent quantum spin liquid candidate herbertsmithite by the hydrothermal route.