Energy transition

Experiments performed at the Paul Scherrer Institute (PSI) investigate processes inside volcanic materials that determine whether a volcano will erupt violently or mildly.

An American-Swiss research team has used a new X-ray technique at Swiss Light Source (SLS) of the Paul Scherrer Institute (PSI) to investigate the magnetic properties of atomically thin layers of a parent compound of a high-temperature superconductor. It turns out that the magnetic properties of such thin films differ by only a surprisingly small degree from those of macroscopically thick samples.

Spin correlations with power-law decay are usually associated with a critical point, but stable phases with power-law correlations may exist in frustrated magnets. Such phases are interesting, because they represent model materials where short-range interactions and local constraints lead to emergent symmetries and fractional quasiparticles.

Marco Stampanoni, Assistant Professor for X-ray microscopy at the ETH Zürich and Head of the 'X-ray Tomography Group' of the SLS has been recently awarded one of the coveted European Research Council (ERC) Starting Grant for the project PhaseX: 'Phase contrast X-ray imaging for medicine'. Marco Stampanoni's project will be supported by the ERC with 1.5 million euros for the next 5 years. The highly competitive ERC Starting Grants are reserved for outstanding young research talents.

The interest in BaCuSi₂O₆ is motivated by its extraordinary phase diagram with field-induced Bose-Einstein condensation. Being a quantum paramagnet at zero magnetic field down to the lowest temperatures, the system displays a quantum phase transition into a magnetically ordered state at the critical value of magnetic field of ~23.5 T.

The electronic band structure E(k) as energy E of the electrons depending on its wavevector k is the cornerstone concept of the quantum solid state theory. The main experimental method to investigate E(k) is the angle-resolved photoelectron spectroscopy (ARPES). However, a small photoelectron escape depth of a few Å largely restricts the applications of ARPES to two-dimensonal crystals.

In conjunction with the increasing availability of cost-efficient laser units during the recent years, laser-based micromachining techniques have been developed as an indispensable industrial instrument of ‘‘tool-free’’ high-precision manufacturing techniques for the production of miniaturized devices made of nearly every type of materials. Laser cutting and drilling, as well as surface etching, have grown meanwhile to mature standard methods in laser micromachining applications where a well-defined laser beam is used to remove material by laser ablation. As an accurately triggerable nonmechanical tool, the ablating laser beam directly allows a subtractive direct-write engraving of precise microscopic structure patterns on surfaces, such as microchannels, grooves, and well arrays, as well as for security features. Therefore, laser direct-write (LDW) techniques imply originally a controlled material ablation to create a patterned surface with spatially resolved three-dimensional structures, and gained importance as an alternative to complementary photolithographic wet-etch processes. However, with more extended setups, LDW techniques can also be utilized to deposit laterally resolved micropatterns on surfaces, which allows, in a general sense, for the laser-assisted ‘‘printing’’ of materials.

X-ray lasers belong to a modern generation of light sources from which scientists in widely different disciplines expect to obtain new knowledge about the structure and function of materials at the atomic level. On the basis of this new knowledge, it could then be possible one day to develop better medicines, more powerful computers or more efficient catalysts for energy transformation.

The physical mechanisms responsible for the formation of a two-dimensional electron gas at the interface between insulating SrTiO₃ and LaAlO₃ have remained a contentious subject since its discovery in 2004. Opinion is divided between an intrinsic mechanism involving the build-up of an internal electric potential due to the polar discontinuity at the interface between SrTiO₃ and LaAlO₃, and extrinsic mechanisms attributed to structural imperfections.

How can two materials which do not conduct electricity create an electrically conducting layer when they are joined together? Since this effect was discovered in 2004, researchers have developed various hypotheses to answer this question – each with its own advocates, who defend it and try to prove its validity. Now, an international team under the leadership of researchers at the Paul Scherrer Institute has probably settled the controversy.

Patterned deposition of polymer light-emitting diode (PLED) pixels is a challenge for electronic display applications. PLEDs have additional problems requiring solvent orthogonality of different materials in adjacent layers. We present the fabrication of a PLED pixel by the sequential deposition of two different layers with laser-induced forward transfer (LIFT), a “dry” deposition technique. This novel use of LIFT has been compared to “normal” LIFT, where all the layers are transferred in a single step, and a conventional PLED fabrication process.

X-ray near edge absorption spectroscopy was used to probe the electronic structure of multiferroic orthorhombic LuMnO₃ polycrystalline samples and strained, twin-free orthorhombic (1–10) LuMnO₃ films grown by pulsed laser deposition on (1–10) YAlO₃ substrates. For all o-LuMnO₃ samples x-ray near edge absorption spectroscopy spectra reveal that the pre-edge structure is influenced by the increase in MnO6 distortion as a result of the smaller Re-ion or film strain. Furthermore there is clear evidence of anisotropic Mn-O bonding and Mn orbital ordering along the c- and [110] direction. The experimental film and bulk data are in agreement with ab initio simulations.

The MEGAWatt Pilot Experiment was operated for neutron generation with the PSI high intensity proton beam in 2006. The experiment utilized liquid target material, a lead bismuth eutectic. This marked a major milestone towards Accelerator Driven Systems (ADS), which are intended to be used for the incineration of nuclear waste.

Magnetism has been predicted to occur in systems in which dipolar interactions dominate exchange. We present neutron scattering, specific heat, and magnetic susceptibility data for LiErF₄, establishing it as a model dipolar-coupled antiferromagnet with planar spin-anisotropy and a quantum phase transition in applied field H_c|| = 4.0 ± 0.1 kilo-oersteds.