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The two IN16B instrument projects BATS and GaAs have just been successfully commissioned. They were developed in collaboration between the Friedrich-Alexander University Erlangen-Nürnberg and the ILL over the last years, and both ventures were largely financed by the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research through its ‘Verbundforschung’ programme.The BATS (Backscattering And Time-of-fli…

The rare earth nickelates RNiO3 with the high Ni3+ oxidation state have continued to attract enormous interest due to the famous metal-insulator transition and unusual charge and spin-order phenomena. The prediction for multiferroicity and even superconductivity in thin film hetero-structures have triggered new intensive research efforts. However, our theoretical understanding remains limited. Lo…

It was an honour today for the ILL to receive the visit of five consulate officials from Lyon. Management took pleasure in presenting the Institute’s activities to these VIP representatives from some of the Institute’s Associate and Scientific Member countries:           •    For Germany: Ms Dorothee Heidorn, Consul and Mr Max Maldacker, Consul General           •    For Italy: Mr Alberto Bertoni…

November 2013Fluctuating charge stripes are among the more popular candidates to explain high-temperature superconductivity. So far escaping direct observation  the peculiar ‘hourglass’ magnetic excitation spectrum was taken as evidence for their existence. New Nature Communications paper now find…

8.09.2017Neutron experiments conducted by the Institut Laue-Langevin (ILL) and CNRS researchers provide a direct quantitative measurement of phonon lifetimes in a clathrate, providing a novel picture of thermal conductivity in complex materialsThis study has highlighted the importance of neutron t…

Unit cells of clathrate structure I and clathrate structure II. Different types of polyhedral cages are represented in different colours. Reproduced from Ranieri et al., Nature Comm. Gas clathrate hydrates are ice-like solids, in which gas molecules or atoms are tr…

Chemical structures of a PC lipid (a) and of the glycolipid DGDG (b) as representatives of two fundamentally different lipid classes found in nature: Lipids with a headgroup chemistry dominated by one large electric dipole and lipids whose headgroups comprise multiple small electric dipoles in th…

10.12.2014The discovery of a new form of ice could lead to an improved understanding of our planet’s geology, potentially helping to unlock new solutions in the production, transportation and storage of energy. Ice XVI, the least dense of all known forms of ice, has a highly symmetric cage-like st…