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S C I E N T I F I C H I G H L I G H T S

M A T E R I A L S F O R T O M O R R O W ' S I N N O V A T I V E A N D S U S T A I N A B L E I N D U S T R Y

The green transition covers all industrial sectors, boosting green technology and sustainable industry shaping our modern world. One of the biggest drivers is the sustainable energy system. Another driver is the strategic importance of resources. Yet these are often in contradiction, for example, in the case of rare earth metals. Rare earths play an essential role in the green energy transition, but Europe is highly dependent on external sources for them. Recycling rare earths, at least as a partial solution, presents a significant challenge due to their tiny amount in complex products. Another option is the development of new and innovative materials.

To enable sustainable technological developments, combinatorial approaches are rapidly developing in materials science. In principle, the elements of the periodic table can be combined in infinitude material systems. The composition space for potential new materials can be restricted by the selection of the chemical elements and the processing parameters. High-quality and high- throughput characterisation methods, such as those offered by the ESRF s new Extremely Brilliant Source (EBS), can be used to build a database of the compositional, structural and functional properties of new materials. With advanced modelling, these databases can then be used for much faster and cost-effective materials design for improved sets of properties.

While such an approach is still in its infancy, it is condensed matter physics that plays a central role in helping us to understand the macroscopic and microscopic properties of applied materials, from metals to semiconductors, biomaterials, polymers, quantum materials, etc. This strongly overlaps with many other fields such as quantum mechanics, electromagnetism, statistical mechanics, chemistry, materials science, etc. And it is X-ray characterisation techniques that make it possible to probe the bulk order of these materials at the atomic level.