LE RAYON DE SOLEIL - N°26 - 2017

Contents

Research at SOLEIL

Spintronics harnesses the exotic electrons of topological insulators
This study led jointly by researchers of the unité mixte de physique CNRS – Thales and CEA INAC in collaboration with the team of the CASSIOPEE beamline led to the observation of a high level of spin – charge conversion at ambient temperatures achieved because of the particular electronic structure of the topological insulator α-Sn... 

Insight into membrane proteins’ structure
Membrane proteins play crucial roles in transport and signaling, and are often key targets for efficient drugs. Their specific localization and their amphiphilic properties are an obstacle to structural studies. On SWING beamline, a strategy has been developed to tackle with those refractory proteins.

New equipment

On SOLEIL beamlines and support laboratories, equipment keeps on evoluting, according to the needs and expectations of the scientists. This new section aims at briefly introducing the latest setups, with a particular focus on two of them. For this first edition we look to DEIMOS and HERMES.

Know how

FOCUS ON...
A storage ring fit to operate two long beamlines simultaneously
It required the work of more than a dozen SOLEIL groups to enable the respective undulators of ANATOMIX and NANOSCOPIUM to provide a beam simultaneously to both of these long beamlines.

EXPERT PORTAIT
Laurent Barthe, beamline Assistant Engineer.

SPOTLIGHT ON
SOS beamlines: the hall coordinators are on hand…
There are six of them, and during beamtime operations when the beamlines are functioning, they work in eight-hour shifts, twenty-four hours a day, six days a week. Their mission is to help beamline personnel and users with problems that they may encounter with their experiments at SOLEIL.

FOCUS ON: 2- and 3-dimensional imaging

- Recherche interdisciplinaire et résultats obtenus sur :
 
HERMES - Weaving 3D magnetic memories using nanowires
There is a tremendous need for high data storage capabilities, which continues to increase exponentially these last years. Requirements other than the amount of storage also include, depending on the application: access speed, endurance, volatility, energy for writing / reading a bit and the cost per bit. Within the framework of an EU project (M3D), several European laboratories are involved to address materials for nonvolatile mass storage, where the density and cost per bit are the key issues. (...) p20

NANOSCOPIUM - MMX-I: a software for multi-modal X-ray imaging
Scanning hard X-ray imaging allows simultaneous acquisition of multimodal information, i.e. of images in which each pixel contains several types of data. (...) p21

PSICHE - Plant embolism and drought resistance
Plant mortality during extreme drought events has recently been associated with plant vulnerability to xylem cavitation, a phenomenon corresponding to the disruption of water transport in embolized vessels. Despite the recent advances in the field of plant hydraulics, there is still debate as to whether plants routinely face embolism and recover easily from it or are highly resistant to embolism.(...) p22

SMIS - Infra-red imaging and spectro-tomography
For a number of years the team of the SMIS beamline has developed a worthwhile collaboration with researchers of the IAS (Institut d’Astrophysique Spatiale d’Orsay) in respect of the analysis of small extra-terrestrial dust systems originating from primitive objects (...) p24

Innovations

LBS³: a winning³ partnership in the conception of innovative medicines for the future
Bringing together the companies and the synchrotron facility in an efficient and sustainable way: this has been the stated ambition of SOLEIL since its start of operation in January 2008. The last decisive advance in this approach was embodied by the inauguration of the Laboratoire de Biologie Structurale (Structural Biology Laboratory) SERVIER at SOLEIL (LBS3) on the 23 June 2016...

Science and society

Towards the electrochemical storage of energy, a new generation
Global warming and the finite nature of fossil fuels mean that renewable energy is a French and European priority. Within this context, the aim of RS2E*, initiated in 2011, is to develop new methods for the low cost, large-scale, electrochemical storage of energy whilst adhering to sustainability principles...
* Research network on electrochemical energy storage