Yttrium oxyhydride (YHxOy) is a promising mixed-anion semiconductor in view of its photochromic properties, offering prospects for applications in smart windows. The origin of its pronounced color-neutral photodarkening upon UV illumination and the subsequent process of bleaching back to the transparent state is topic of our investigations. We present in-situ illumination studies based on...
Pulses and beans are important protein sources in the current protein transition, but much of the behavior of pulse proteins in food systems is still unknown. In particular in interface-dominated materials (emulsions, foams, etc), the nanoscopic behaviour of a protein – how they fold, stretch, and lock into place – governs whether a protein assembly ends up as a gel, a glass, or something in...
Inhomogeneity is a defining feature of real-world materials - whether in composition, phase, strain, or defect distribution - and plays a central role in determining their mechanical and functional behavior. Neutron imaging, with its unique ability to penetrate dense structural materials, has evolved into a powerful, non-destructive tool for visualizing such internal complexity across...
The importance of hydrogen embrittlement (HE) will increase with the energy transition, as hydrogen (H) is a promising fuel for CO₂-free power generation. In aviation, the replacement of kerosene by H requires turbine materials resistant to HE. Single-crystal (SX) superalloys are the material of choice for the hottest turbine sections, where the lattice parameter misfit between y and y' is a...
Alloy 718, a widely used Ni-based superalloy, is susceptible to hydrogen embrittlement. The γ' and γ'' precipitates and the δ phase significantly contribute to this embrittlement. To determine if other superalloys with different grain boundary pinning phases exhibit similar behavior, we investigated two γ' strengthened CoNiCr-based superalloys containing B2-structured β or D85-structured µ...
Time-resolved in situ investigations are very useful for unveiling basic steps of chemical reactions. They are of fundamental importance for many technologically relevant processes, e. g. hydrogen storage, electrochemical energy storage or ore smelting, and allow for elucidation of reaction pathways and the identification of intermediates thus enabling better reaction control [1-4]....
Single chain nano particles (SCNPs) are model system to decipher intrinsically disordered proteins. Here, we have probed the effect of salt/polymer concentration, cross link density, and charge density. Poly-l-lysine-SCNPs (PLL-SCNPs) prepared by tuning intramolecular crosslinking, solvent condition and ionic strength. Structural result show that radius of gyration of PLL-SCNP lowers by...
Many emergent properties of great interest occur near a quantum critical point were a second-order transition is suppressed to zero temperature. Hence, a significant focus of current condensed matter is the study of susceptibilities and order parameters in materials that are influenced by quantum fluctuations. Structural phase transitions close to zero temperature provide ideal platforms for...
In cubic chiral magnets, the efficient coupling of magnetic skyrmion lattices to spin currents and magnetic fields permits their dynamical manipulation. When placed in a magnetic field with a slowly oscillating direction, the skyrmion lattice can be depinned, realizing a non-equilibrium state with vanishing depinning currents. With the combination of oscillating magnetic fields and applied...
Neutron crystallography is a powerful method to determine the positions of hydrogen atoms in macromolecular structures. However, it is sometimes hard to judge what would constitute a chemically reasonable model, and the geometry of H atoms depends more on the surroundings (for example the formation of hydrogen bonds) than heavy atoms, so that the empirical geometry information for the hydrogen...
Lipid nanoparticles (LNPs) are the delivery technology in the mRNA SARS-CoV-2 vaccines, and they are now being screened to deliver a broad variety of biological drugs. Despite their success, rational design of lipid based nanocarriers for precision medicine applications is complex. One of the key barriers is our current limited ability to relate nanoparticle structure and chemical composition...
The decay of the free neutron offers many opportunities to determine fundamental parameters in the Standard Model of particle physics, and also plays an important role in cosmology. The lifetime of the neutron is of particular importance, especially since it should be easy to measure in principle.
Even though we discovered the neutron almost a hundred years ago, experimental physicists face...
We present a resonant spectroscopy technique devoted to the study of gravitation and the related cosmological problems of Dark Matter and Dark Energy. The object is a quantum mechanical wavepacket of an ultra-cold neutron, and the new method extends the techniques of Purcel, Rabi and Ramsey to neutron quantum states in the gravity potential of the Earth. The technique is named Gravity...
In dilute aqueous solution, diblock copolymers with a hydrophobic and a thermo-responsive block self-assemble into core-shell micelles. Here, we present the self-assembly behavior of the diblock copolymer PMMA-b-PNIPAM consisting of a short hydrophobic poly(methyl methacrylate) and a long thermoresponsive poly(N-isopropylacrylamide) block. Synchrotron small-angle X-ray scattering reveals...