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South Africa joins the ESRF
On 21st May, South Africa signed a medium-term arrangement with the ESRF at a level of 0.3% and, in doing so, became the 20th country to join the European synchrotron. South Africa’s affiliation is a major milestone in its long-standing determination to reinforce ties wit…
ESRF lays "grey gold" paving in new experimental halls
State-of-the-art technology is commonplace at the ESRF and this rule does not just apply to instrumentation. Today, one of the seemingly most basic and fundamental ingredients of construction, and certainly the most used man-made product in the world, namely concrete, has be…
Phonon anomalies and the Verwey transition in magnetite
The Verwey transition in magnetite is one of the longest unsolved problems of solid state physics, where the otherwise excellent theories fail to capture the collective nature of the first-order phase transition. A recent inelastic X-ray scattering (IXS) study revealed an an…
A new class of signalling molecules revealed by structure solution exploiting the anomalous scattering of sulphur
FAM3B PANDER is involved in the regulation of glucose homeostasis and β cell function and FAM3C ILEI is implicated in cancer. They had both been predicted to be classical cytokines with three dimensional structures based on a 4-helix bundle. The crystal structure of FAM3B P…
Beauty of science: isolated core-shell silver/gold nanowire
The image shows the coherent X-ray diffraction pattern of an isolated, single-crystalline core-shell Ag/Au nanowire measured in Bragg condition at the ID03 beamline. …
The Earth’s Centre is 1000 Degrees Hotter than Previously Thought
Scientists have determined the temperature near the Earth’s centre to be 6000 degrees Celsius, 1000 degrees hotter than in a previous experiment run 20 years ago. These measurements confirm geophysical models that the temperature difference between the solid core and the m…
Happy symbiosis between tutor and trainee
Every year the ESRF offers more than 100 traineeships to enthusiastic and committed students pursuing studies at or below the Masters level. Students worldwide are welcomed for periods from several weeks to several years depending on the type of training involved.…
Particle and liquid motion in semi-solid aluminium alloys
Semi-solid casting is a promising process for the production of light-weight metallic components. However, a semi-solid melt exhibits unpredictable flow and filling dynamics when it is injected into thin-walled components. The former were studied by injecting a semi-solid Al…
Research with synchrotron X-rays boosts industrial innovation
In February the ESRF carried out a survey of its academic users to ask about their links with industry. Replies have confirmed what we already believed, that research carried out using synchrotron X-rays is becoming increasingly beneficial to industry.…
Synchrotron optics simulations: 3-codes tutorial