NEAT: The chamber from Spain - HZB future log's latest addition
At first, the various parts are carefully unloaded so that they can be lifted quickly into the building through the roof of the NEAT building's newest addition.
© Stefanie Kodalle
Since the HZB future log (#HZBzlog) went live in March of this year, there have been a total of 15 episodes on building and developing our future projects. The focus has been on three projects in particular: high field magnet (for a total of seven episodes), EMIL (five episodes), and BESSY-VSR (three episodes). Next, the NEAT project team is taking the #HZBzlog stage.
The first episode entitled "The chamber from Spain" lets those watching and reading trace the detector chamber's course. Constructed in Spain, the chamber is slated to arrive at the HZB within the next couple of days. Witnessing the chamber's spectacular lift into the neutron conductor hall through the building's ceiling will be one of the episode's highlights.
The first NEAT episode will pick up where the current high field magnet (HFM) episode "Stairway to Heaven" left off. The episode's title, which is loosely based on the Led Zeppelin rock ballad of the same name, is no accident. Because if the electricity tests turn out successful, the HFM team will indeed feel fairly heavenly, meaning not much will stand in the way of successfully starting operation of the magnet.
As always, we will also be letting you know about stuff to know about current topics that are part of the team's research activities. In the case of "Stairway to Heaven," it might look something like this: Hartmut Ehmler talks about how the team gradually increases the electric current's strength that is being sent through the magnet. He tells of unexpected rises in temperature and of the team's response to them. Right after, Jonas Böhm explains facts to know about helium, the coolant of extremes. And Antonia Rötger will be speaking on the topic of quenching.
The NEAT episode will also provide interesting tidbits and special features on the topic of the construction work including a piece on the "travel window." Not sure what we're talking about? Just drop by and stay tuned to #hzbzlog (www.hzbzlog.com). You're of course invited to comment or ask questions. For HZB staff, that bit will be a piece of cake. All they have to do is click the "comment" button and register using their HZB email address.
- Magnetic imaging: Micro-flowers increase the local magnetic fieldMaterials with magnetic nanostructures have many potential applications such as in spintronics. To explore such materials, nanoscale magnetic-sensitive imaging techniques are very useful, but up to now only weak magnetic fields could be applied during the imaging process. Now an international collaboration led by Dr. Sergio Valencia, HZB, has developed an approach that overcomes this limitation. The team designed tiny magnetic flux concentrators (MFCs), into which the sample is placed. The geometry of the MFCs resembles a flower with a number of petals which focus the applied magnetic field into its center. This greatly expands the magnetic field range available during imaging, and so the range of magnetic systems that can be investigated. The micro-flowers, enhancing magnetic fields locally, can find application in different nanometric magnetic microscopy techniques.
- Disorder creates new properties in compound semiconductorsAn international research team has demonstrated that the intrinsic disorder of the compound semiconductor CuInSnS₄ can be exploited to influence its optical properties. While the atomic vibrations also sense the local disorder, their response is averaged over many different local environments and therefore appear isotropic, as expected for a cubic crystal. In contrast, the optical excitations, known as excitons, are much more sensitive to the local arrangement of atoms. Surprisingly, they show a direction-dependent optical response even though the average crystal structure is cubic. These findings shed new light on the relationship between disorder and material properties, opening up new options for targeted 'disorder engineering' in optoelectronic and photocatalytic devices.
- Superconducting TES array X-ray spectrometer goes into operation at BESSY IIEurope's first and only TES-spectrometer at a synchrotron source is now in operation at BESSY II, developed within a collaboration between the HZB, the MPI-CEC (Mühlheim-an-der-Ruhr, Germany) and the NIST (Boulder CO, USA). The photon detection efficiency of the new instrument exceeds that of wavelength-dispersive X-ray emission spectrometers by a factor of 100 to 1000. It will be used to investigate the electronic properties of atomically thin layers, nanostructures and highly diluted atomic and molecular samples. The team is looking forward to receiving exciting research proposals from the user community.