News

Researchers used neutrons to study how peptides assemble into tiny spirals - and then used them as templates to create golden replicas.

A former PhD student at the ILL and Birmingham University has been awarded this year’s prize for her “ground-breaking contributions to the study of frustrated magnets using neutron polarisation analysis combined with novel data analysis methodologies, and especially her discovery of a spiral spin liquid phase in LiYbO2.”

Using ILL's neutron imaging instrument NeXT, researchers were able to visualise how different fuel cells manage their only reactant product: water. This study demonstrates the uniquely important role of neutrons in the design of tomorrow's energy conversion technologies.

Energy-resolved neutron experiments provide insights into novel energy technologies

Some magnetic materials feature peculiar states the fundamental understanding of which may pave the way for future applications. Neutron experiments have just revealed that they can be unexpectedly stable with respect to microscopic disorder.

In everyday life, we typically encounter water in one of three familiar states – solid, liquid or gas. But there are in fact many more phases, some of which – predicted to exist at high temperature and pressure – are so strange they’re referred to as exotic. State-of-the-art neutron spectrometers and sample environment infrastructures at the Institut Laue-Langevin (ILL) have enabled the first experimental observation of one of these exotic phases – plastic ice VII.

Bacteria may soon replace viruses as primary pandemic concern. In our shrinking antibiotic arsenal, polymyxin B stands out as a last-resort drug capable of breaching the bacterial outer membrane – though not without side effects. A study now published brought together expertise from different neutron facilities to examine this process at the molecular scale using neutron scattering on model bacterial membranes. This work was also featured as a cover image for the journal issue.

Future progress will be defined by the development of new and innovative next-generation materials. Despite the magnitude of the endeavour, breakthroughs will depend on understanding at the smallest scale: fundamentally, the properties of a material depend on its structure. A recent study highlights the unique insights that can be provided by world-leading neutron expertise, instruments and technology at the ILL.

HIV/AIDS remains a major global health challenge, with an estimated 39 million people living with the disease and 1.5 million new infections each year. Though antiretroviral therapy provides effective treatment and prevention, limitations arise due to inadequate adherence to the required lifelong daily drug regimen. There is thus significant interest in the development of long-acting drug delivery systems that enable consistent and sustained drug release for extended periods. Researchers from Queen’s University Belfast have recently published proof-of-concept of a long-acting drug delivery platform based on a novel peptoid-peptide material. The contribution to this work by the Institut Laue-Langevin (ILL) demonstrates, once again, the facility’s dedication to the provision of neutrons for society.

A study now published in Nature Communications brings remarkable insights into the enigmatic behaviour of supercritical fluids, a hybrid state of matter occupying a unique space between liquids and gases, and arising in domains ranging from the pharmaceutical industry to planetary science. The obtained results are at the limit of current experimental possibilities and could only be obtained in a high-flux neutron source such as the ILL.

On 29 November, a half-day event was organized to celebrate 50 years since the UK joined France and Germany as equal partners (Associates) at the ILL.In the first session, former directors and scientists entertained an audience of about 150 (in the Chadwick amphitheatre and virtually) with insights, achievements and anecdotes from the 1970s and the following decades. The second session focused on…

Though continuous down-scaling in microelectronics has enabled the industry to achieve phenomenal success, the trend is now approaching fundamental limits. Promising alternative technologies for next generation devices exploit not only the charge of the electron – as used in conventional microelectronics – but also the electron spin (spintronics) or spin waves (magnonics) in order to transmit, st…