Research on Covid-19

Claire Donnelly, Mesoscopic Systems (ETH Zurich - PSI), was awarded the COMSOL SPS Award in Computational Physics, the Werner Meyer-Ilse Memorial Award, the ETH Medal for an outstanding doctoral thesis, and the American Physical Society Richard L. Greene Dissertation Award.

The inversion of inhomogeneous physical states has great technological importance; for example, active noise reduction relies on the emission of an inverted sound wave that interferes destructively with the noise of the emitter1, and inverting the evolution of a spin system by using a magnetic-field pulse enables magnetic resonance tomography2.

Cellulose nanocrystals (CNC) are an emerging natural material with the ability to stabilize fluid/fluid interfaces. Native CNC is hydrophilic and does not change the inter- facial tension of the stabilized emulsion or foam system. In this study, rod-like cellulose particles were isolated from hemp and chemically modified to alter their hydrophobicity, i.e. their surface-activity, which was demonstrated by surface tension measurements of the particles at the air/water interface.

We present a soft x-ray angle-resolved photoemission spectroscopy study of overdoped high- temperature superconductors. In-plane and out-of-plane components of the Fermi surface are mapped by varying the photoemission angle and the incident photon energy. No k_z dispersion is observed along the nodal direction, whereas a significant antinodal k_z dispersion is identified for La-based cuprates.

Single atomic layers of aluminum oxide embedded in SiO2 thin films, play an important role for the design of carrier-selective passivating contacts for high efficiency silicon based photovoltaic applications. Researchers from the Australian National University (ANU, Canberra, Australia), the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (IT, Karlsruhe, Germany) and PSI have used synchrotron radiation to reveal the bonding configuration and local atomic surrounding of the Al-atoms in such surface oxide layers. The results corroborates theoretical calculations and contribute to a new model to explain the origin of the negative fixed charge in the Al-O/SiO2 stack, which has promising properties for a carrier-selective passivating contact for future silicon solar cells.

On the 7th to 12th of August 2018, a collaborative group of scientists from the Paul Scherrer Institute and members of the LeadXpro and Heptares pharmaceutical companies led by Karol Nass (PSI macromolecular crystallography MX-SLS group) performed the first serial femtosecond crystallography (SFX) pilot user experiment at the SwissFEL X-ray free electron laser (XFEL).

Determining the fate of the Pauling entropy in the classical spin ice material Dy₂Ti₂O₇ with respect to the third law of thermodynamics has become an important test case for understanding the existence and stability of ice-rule states in general. The standard model of spin ice—the dipolar spin ice model—predicts an ordering transition at T ≈ 0.15K, but recent experiments by Pomaranski et al.

The different reaction steps involved in repeated Pt13In9 segregation‐alloying are identified by XAS and kinetically characterized at the single‐cycle level.

The highest award of the international X-ray absorption spectroscopy (IXAS) society, the Edward Stern Outstanding Achievement Award, was presented to Prof. Ronald Frahm during the tri-annual IXAS meeting in Kraków, Poland in July 2018.

Two-dimensional magnetic systems with continuous spin degrees of freedom exhibit a rich spectrum of thermal behaviour due to the strong competition between fluctuations and correlations. When such systems incorporate coupling via the anisotropic dipolar interaction, a discrete symmetry emerges, which can be spontaneously broken leading to a low-temperature ordered phase.

The mechanism of hydrogen evolution by cobalt polypyridyls catalysts is investigated. Pump-probe X‐ray absorption spectra measured at SuperXAS in the microsecond time range indicate that the pendant pyridine dissociates from the cobalt in the intermediate Co(I) state. This opens the possibility for pyridinium to act as an intramolecular proton donor, which can be used for the development of efficient catalysts.

Magnetic skyrmions are topologically protected spin-whirls currently considered as promising for use in ultra-dense memory devices. Towards achieving this goal, exploration of the skyrmion phase response and under external stimuli is urgently required.

Using targeted synthesis and in situ characterization a palladium catalyst with improved stability against sintering during methane oxidation was prepared.

We report an inelastic neutron scattering study on the spin resonance in the bilayer iron-based superconductor CaKFe₄As₄. In contrast to its quasi-two-dimensional electron structure, three strongly L-dependent modes of spin resonance are found below T_c = 35 K.

Muon spin relaxation (μSR) experiments on a single molecule magnet enriched in different Dy isotopes detect unambiguously a slowing down of the zero field spin dynamics for the non-magnetic isotope. This occurs in the low temperature regime dominated by quantum tunnelling, in agreement with previous ac susceptibility investigations. In contrast to the latter, however, μSR is sensitive to all fluctuation modes affecting the lifetime of the spin levels.

The rational design of the magnetic anisotropy of molecular materials constitutes a goal of primary importance in molecular magnetism. Indeed, the applications of molecular nanomagnets, such as single-molecule magnets and molecular magnetic refrigerants, depend on the full control over this property.