7

NEWS

June 2023 ESRFnews

RITIFI launches

A 30-month project to boost European industry by establishing closer ties between research infrastructures (RIs) and technological infrastructures (TIs) was launched in April. Backed by the European Commission to the value of 1.5m, Research Infrastructures and Technological Infrastructures For Impact (RITIFI) is led by the French Alternative Energies and Atomic Energy Commission, and involves the ESRF, the European Spallation Source in Lund, Sweden, and the European Infrastructure for Translational Medicine in Amsterdam, the Netherlands, alongside a number of European TIs and research and technology organisations. The aim is to stimulate collaboration and policy coordination among RIs and TIs, improve their visibility to end users and develop ways in which TIs can be coordinated internationally. Among other responsibilities, the ESRF will jointly lead the project s communication, networking and outreach.

Molecules are good candidates for qubits, as they are easy to tune.

E S

R F/

P A

U L

TA F FO

R E

A U

IS TO

C K

/ S

A K

K M

E S

TE R

K E

Battery temperatures mapped A team of researchers led by University College London (UCL) in the UK, working with the ESRF, has developed a non-destructive technique to map the temperatures inside lithium-ion batteries while they are being charged and discharged. The method could help in the design of batteries that are less likely to catch fire.

Especially in the electric vehicle market, there is a high demand for lithium-ion batteries that can be charged quickly, but this makes them heat up. Charge a lithium-ion battery too fast, and it risks catching fire, or even exploding. For this reason, scientists are keen to understand experimentally how temperatures change in different parts of a battery. Until now, however, they have had to be content with disassembling cells to introduce probes, preventing the batteries from being studied during normal operation.

Tom Heenan at UCL and

colleagues operando method makes use of the high photon flux at very high energy (100 keV) provided by the ESRF EBS. Via a combination of two techniques at the ID15A beamline high-speed X-ray diffraction computed-tomography, and multi- channel collimator X-ray diffraction  they have been able to map accurately the temperature, state-of-charge and mechanical strain of a battery operated at high charge discharge rates. The results highlighted key differences in temperature maps between two types of electric-vehicle cathode materials, and in aged batteries (Nature 617 517).

According to Heenan, they present an extraordinary new direction of research. We can design new strategies for the management of temperature under real-world conditions, he says. If electric-vehicle adoption rates are to be met, we need to be able to check whether new design mitigations are effective or not and now we can.

ID28 watches qubits relax Users of the ESRF s ID28 beamline have successfully uncovered the relaxation dynamics of quantum bits, or qubits , made from molecular magnets. The study could help in the development of molecular qubits for quantum computation.

Unlike classical bits of information, which hold definite binary values of 0 or 1, qubits can store information in a superposition of both values. The capability allows quantum computers to explore many possible solutions to multi-variable problems simultaneously, meaning that they are much more efficient at tackling optimisation tasks, such as forecasting the weather or modelling financial markets. Qubits can be made from anything

that can adopt a two-level quantum state. Molecular qubits, consisting of the electron spin in a metal-based molecule, are particularly attractive because they are straightforward to synthesise and tune. Unfortunately, their operation is hampered by molecular vibrations and spin-phonon interactions, which affect spin relaxation and the coherence times of the quantum states.

Now, Elena Garlatti at the University of Parma in Italy and colleagues have used inelastic X-ray scattering at ID28, in combination

with periodic density functional theory calculations, to measure phonon dispersions in a crystal of molecular qubits. The results showed that the standard Debye picture of lattice dynamics breaks down and that low-energy, intra-molecular vibrations are largely responsible for spin relaxation up to ambient temperature (Nat. Commun. 14 1653). [This is an] unprecedented insight into the nature of phonons and vibrations, as well as their role in magnetic relaxation and decoherence of molecular qubits, the authors say.

HUBs kicking off Users are looking at HUB access to boost scientific impact in two fields of major societal importance. The HUB is a new mode of community access that groups together independent principal investigators (PIs) working on the same, societally relevant theme who commit to collaborate and share results from the beamtime awarded. By combining their expertise, the PIs want to progress their research field faster and more efficiently. A pilot HUB led by the French Alternative Energies and Atomic Energy Commission for battery research has been operating successfully for almost two years. Now, users have proposed a HUB for human organ imaging using hierarchical phase-contrast tomography (image below) on the BM18 beamline, and another HUB for research into additive manufacturing is being prepared for submission.

We can design new strategies for the management of temperature under real-world conditions