Spotlight on Science
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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…
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…
Structural and electronic reconstruction at the interface between LaAlO3 and SrTiO3 band insulators revealed by X-rays
The interface between two of the most popular band insulating oxides, LaAlO3 and SrTiO3, is conducting under certain conditions due to the formation of a high mobility 2D-electron gas, a discovery made in 2004 by Ohtomo and Hwang [1]. Here, by using a combination of advanced…
A path to new manganites with perovskite structure
Two new phases of Mn2O3, corundum-type and perovskite-type Mn2O3, were obtained by high-pressure high-temperature synthesis. The observation of the perovskite structure in simple Mn2O3 challenges the main conjecture of perovskite science and technology which so far assumed a…
Sub-angstrom resolution protein crystallography reveals how living organisms discriminate in favour of phosphate in arsenate-rich environments
Arsenate and phosphate are both common on Earth and have very similar chemical properties. However, phosphate is vital to life while arsenate is toxic. Discrimination by proteins between arsenate and phosphate is thus essential to the survival of living organisms, particular…
New structures of carbonates at high pressures and their relevance for the deep Earth carbon cycle
Calcite and dolomite, two of the most common minerals on the Earth’s surface, undergo phase transitions at high pressure. Their structures have be identified by single-crystal diffraction experiments under extreme conditions. Dolomite-III, in particular, was found to be tr…
Record paramagnetic response of gold nanoparticles deposited on an archaeal cell wall surface layer
Gold nanoparticles were grown on the surface layer (S-layer) of the outer cell wall of the thermoacidophilic archaeon Sulfolobus acidocaldarius. Cysteine residues in the cell wall provide sulphur atoms that render the Au paramagnetic by increasing the number of holes in its …
Blue blood: a challenge for structural biologists
Some of the animals living in the sea have blue blood. The origin of this blue colour is a protein called hemocyanin that contains copper bound to molecular oxygen: an essential interaction allowing these animals to live. Scientists at the ESRF have unravelled the structure …
The dark side of KillerRed
KillerRed, a red fluorescent protein, generates highly-cytotoxic reactive oxygen species when illuminated with strong light. The molecular mechanism of the laser-induced photo-conversion that results in a photobleached state of the molecule has been elucidated for a highly p…
XMCD reveals the magnetism of Rh clusters
The type of magnetism exhibited by a material can be dependent on the size of the particle, with nanoscale clusters behaving differently to the bulk material. Rhodium clusters of around 150 atoms have been investigated using XMCD to examine the magnetic behaviour of itineran…
Uptake of titanium dioxide nanoparticles by cucumber plants probed by submicrometre X-ray microspectroscopy
Nanoparticular titanium dioxide is one of the most commonly used nanomaterials. In this study, the speciation and distribution of titanium in cucumber plants exposed to titanium dioxide nanoparticles were investigated to determine whether the nanoparticles could enter into t…
Atomic dynamics and physical ageing in metallic glasses
Glasses are often considered as archetypes for systems far from thermodynamical equilibrium. Understanding their physical ageing is essential for technological applications as well as for fundamental research. For the first time, researchers have investigated the ageing of m…
X-ray excited optical imaging of nanosized light emitting diodes
Direct observation of geometrical carrier localisation in single hexagonal core-multishell nanowires was used by researchers at the ESRF to demonstrate that size-dependent phenomena at the nanoscale can be imaged by X-ray excited optical luminescence. This research provides …
Adding new dimensions to the self-assembly of nanomagnets
Dipolar interactions between colloidal particles generate unusual self-organised architectures that could pave the way to novel applications. Magnetic core-shell nanoparticles in suspension were recently studied at the ESRF. Their self-assembly was shown to proceed with the …
Bone ultrastructure resolved in 3D by phase nanotomography
Bone tissue was imaged at the subcellular level with synchrotron X-ray phase nanotomography. Images at the ultrastructural level have previously only been available with electron imaging techniques, such as scanning or transmission electron microscopy, thus in 2D. In this st…
Hydrated minerals from the early solar system probed by Fe-XANES spectroscopy
Meteors occasionally survive impact with the Earth's atmosphere and fall down to Earth as meteorites. These extra-terrestrial rocks let us sample the composition of distant bodies in the Solar System including asteroids, Mars and the Moon. In this study, X-ray spectroscopy, …
Looking inside a working chemical reactor with time and space resolved X-ray diffraction
High-energy X-ray diffraction was used for time and space resolved in operando studies on the zeolite catalyst inside a working catalytic reactor for the methanol-to-olefin process. Scientists were able to correlate growth in size of the unit cell of the zeolite catalyst wit…
Ionic spatial distribution at polarised mercury surfaces probed by X-ray reflectivity
The interface between mercury and an electrolyte solution has been used for more than 50 years as a model system to test the applicability of theories for the electric double layer in order to quantitatively interpret ion-dependent macroscopic surface tension data for such s…
An exotic form of ice: superionic ammonia
The ices of water, ammonia and methane, present inside Neptune and Uranus, have very different properties to ice existing on Earth: they are hot and have a higher density than their melt.…
Synchrotron optics simulations: 3-codes tutorial