The D7 neutron diffuse scattering instrument at the Institut Laue-Langevin [1] has been an important experimental tool in the study of disordered materials, making use of neutron polarization analysis to provide a clean and unambiguous separation of the magnetic, incoherent, and structural contributions to the scattering.
D7 has been disassembled, and the new D007 [2] started its...
Solid-state batteries have attracted significant interest as promising candidates for high energy density and safe battery technology. However, they commonly experience low ionic conductivity at ambient temperature, which limits their power density. This study addresses this issue by developing a porous separator with one-dimensional (1D) nanometric channels that confine non-flammable ionic...
Beyond well-documented confinement and surface effects arising from the large internal surface and severely confining porosity of nanoporous hosts, the transport of nanoconfined fluids remains puzzling by many aspects. With striking examples such as memory, i.e. non-viscous, effects, intermittent dynamics and surface barriers, the dynamics of fluids in nanoconfinement challenges classical...
Following the proposed materialization of Kitaev-bond-dependent spin liquid physics in honeycomb lattices of heavy transition metals with 4d or 5d electrons [1], it has been proposed that this can be extended to 3d transition metals, in particular Co2+ [2]. A first step in validating the prospect of finding a quantum spin liquid is to demonstrate the presence of these anisotropic...
We will show in this contribution how the combination of SANS and SAXS allows for a detailed monitoring of the respective evolutions of the structure of fillers by SAXS and conformation of polymeric chains by SANS under uniaxial stretching at various elongation ratios in a nanocomposite made of spherical magnetic nanoparticles of γFe2O3 dispersed in a matrix of polystyrene (PS) chains [1]. The...
Dy2Ti2O7 and Ho2Ti2O7 classical spin ice compounds have been extensively studied over the past 30 years. Their excitations, described as emergent magnetic monopoles, exhibit very slow dynamics at low temperature, which manifests by a freezing and a strong irreversibility in Zero Field Cooled - Field Cooled (ZFC-FC) magnetization measurements. It has been proposed that in spin ices made of...
The European Spallation Source (ESS) will operate a suite of diffractometers. One of the first operational instruments will be DREAM [1], a diffractometer developed and built for ESS by the consortium Forschungszentrum Jülich (Germany) and Laboratoire Léon Brillouin (France).
To ensure smooth operation even for the first-time users, the ESS Data Management and Software Centre is developing an...
ICONE (Innovative COmpact NEutrons facility) is a project of a French High-Intensity Compact Accelerator-driven Neutron Source (HiCANS) aimed at delivering an instrument suite for the French scientific community at the 2035 horizon. ICONE will produce neutrons by accelerating protons to an energy 25 MeV and impacting them on a Beryllium target. The resulting neutrons will then be moderated to...
The proximity of SrTiO$_3$ to a ferroelectric quantum critical point (FE QCP) has become a promising new branch of the study of quantum critical phenomena. New forms of quantum order have been reported in SrTiO$_3$, different from the quantum paraelectric state via dielectric measurements. The critical point here is associated with a soft optical phonon mode responsible for the ferroelectric...
Solubilization of hydrophobic compounds in water is commonly performed by the addition of organic solubilizers through (i) micellar or hydrotropic solubilization using amphiphilic molecules[1], (ii) co-solvency using water-soluble solvents, and (iii) host–guest complexation using macrocycles[2]. In this study, we show that the...
Nanoporous materials, such as mesoporous silicas (e.g., MCM-41 and SBA-15) and metal-organic frameworks (MOFs), exhibit unique properties that make them essential for various applications, including catalysis, separation, and energy storage. A key aspect of energy storage in these materials is the intrusion of water into their pores, a process that converts mechanical energy into interfacial...
Underground hydrogen storage (UHS) in coal seams presents a compelling opportunity for scalable, low-carbon energy storage, yet the fundamental understanding of hydrogen transport in such complex porous media remains limited. In this study, we explore hydrogen diffusion in coal using quasielastic neutron scattering (QENS), a technique uniquely suited to capturing molecular-scale dynamics of...
HiCANS, High Current Accelerator-based Neutron Sources, is a concept proposed several years ago which aims at revisiting how neutron sources suitable for neutron scattering could be built [1]. The concept of HiCANS relies on technical progress in accelerator technology, neutron moderator design and neutron instrumentation developments to be able to propose a source using a low energy...
Linear polymers in shear flow display a dominant mode of dynamics known as tumbling, around the vorticity axis, whereby the two ends exchange their places, accompanied by a temporary compression of the chain in the gradient direction. We will demonstrate that topological polymers respond to shear in dramatically different ways, emerging from a coupling between topology and hydrodynamics. In...
Altermagnetism usually refers to the set of collinear compensated magnets at weak spin-orbit coupling whose crystal symmetries do not enforce spin degeneracy. In these systems, one expects an anisotropic pattern of spin splitting in momentum space in the electronic bands. In the magnon bands, one expects a similar pattern of chirality splitting. This talk will be dedicated to explaining how to...
Membrane proteins are responsible of all the communication between living cells and their environment. Despite their basic and therapeutic interest, their are under-represented in our structural biology knowledge due to the intrisic difficulties presented by their production, purification and handling. Nanodiscs are a great tools to study them in their native lipidic environment, and to study...
Small-angle neutron scattering (SANS) is a ubiquitous technique for the study of static & dynamic properties of condensed matter at the mesoscale. The ever-increasing demand in SANS beamtime requires the development of new instruments with high scientific throughputs.
The SAM project was submitted in that spirit during the 'Endurance 2' call of the Institut Laue Langevin (ILL). The...
L’imagerie neutronique, sensible aux noyaux atomiques plutôt qu’à la densité électronique, constitue un outil puissant pour l’étude des batteries Li-ion, permettant notamment d’observer des éléments peu détectables par les rayons X, comme l’hydrogène et le lithium-6. Dans cette étude, nous exploitons cette technique pour analyser la distribution locale du lithium et identifier les...
Pyrochlore oxides with the formula R2M2O7 (R representing a rare-earth element and M a metal ele-ment) consist of two interpenetrating pyrochlore lattices, and are a rich playground to stabilize unconven-tional magnetic frustrated phases [1]. In this family, Nd-based compounds exhibit intriguing physics due to the dipolar-octupolar nature of the Nd3+ ground state doublet [2]. In particular, at...
The modelling of adsorption or confinement of organic molecules in zeolite crystals is a long story, not only because of the infinite possibilities offered by the intrinseque properties of the guest molecules and of the framework topologies.
The simplest family of such inclusion compounds is probably the (dye@zeolite) one. A priori the properties arising from the inclusion of simple dyes,...
Superchaotropic nano-ions have recently captivated attention for their remarkable ability to adsorb onto hydrated neutral surfaces or bind strongly to some cavities of macrocyclic molecules.They indeed exhibit a range of fascinating behaviors:
1. Dramatically increasing the cloud point of non-ionic surfactant systems.
2. Triggering conformational changes in thermo-sensitive polymers in...
The first neutrons from the European Spallation Source are expected to arrive on November 9, 2025.BIFROST will be the first operating spectrometer at ESS. BIFROST is an indirect geometry instrument. It will explore quantum materials, for example, to understand the role of magnetism in superconductors, as well as to measure phonon and magnon spectra in functional materials. The instrument will...
The analysis of neutron data in the context of magnetic structure relies heavily on the fitting of the parameters of an effective Hamiltonian model. The complexity of the systems under study leads to the increase of the number of parameters of these models and a good starting guess for the fit becomes crucial. Ab initio calculations on these systems can provide quantitative estimate for the...
Millions of people suffer life-threatening fungal infections, but there are no vaccines, and only a few antifungal agents, whose application is often restricted by toxicity, resistance and low bioavailability. Most antimycotic drugs target ergosterol residing in fungal membranes, but their precise mechanisms of action, toxicity and resistance development are still unclear. A fuller...
Hydrogen is the carbon-free fuel par excellence because its combustion emits only water. Research has focused on H2 storage in lightweight materials for the needs of vehicles, excluding clays due to their weight. But large-scale terrestrial storage for industrial applications does not require the same specifications. In this context, clay minerals offer several interesting properties, such as...
Institut Max von Laue- Paul Langevin (ILL), 71 Avenue des Martyrs, 38042 Grenoble, France (vagias@ill.fr)
The concept of softness is encountered in different materials of the everyday life, although its precise quantification is still far to be achieved. In thin films of soft matter, quite often compounds that are energetically incompatible have to be mixed. The softness of the emerging...
1 Université Paris Saclay, Laboratoire Léon Brillouin, UMR 12 CNRS-CEA, CEA-Saclay,91191, Gif-sur-Yvette, France
The ICONE project aims to develop a compact neutron source (HiCANS – High Current Accelerator-driven Neutron Source) to serve the needs of the French scientific community. Within this framework, the SAMBA instrument (Small Angle Measurements for Broad Applications) is being...
As they often stabilize with complex non-collinear magnetic structures, frustrated magnets are potential candidates for type-II multiferroism, where both magnetic and electric orders appear at the same temperature and are strongly coupled [1]. In these materials, the proper understanding of the coupling between spin and charge degrees of freedom is a key to identify the microscopic mechanism...
KTb3F10 is a terbium-based compound with a cubic structure (Fm-3m space group), in which the magnetic Tb ions form an unusual network of corner sharing octahedra [1-4]. Tb ions sit on the 24e Wyckoff site (C4n point group) and are surrounded by 8 fluorine atoms, forming a slightly distorted dodecahedra cage. Interestingly, because of the cubic three-fold symmetry, there are three possible...
Controlling the structure of polymer solutions near a solid surface is crucial for many industrial processes as it significantly impacts solution flow and influences slip at the interface. To date, only a few techniques have been developed to experimentally investigate this type of interface at the nanometric scale of solid/liquid interactions. In this study, we probe the interface between a...
We report the emergence of a polar metal phase in layered van der Waals compound FePSe$_3$. This Mott insulator with antiferromagnetic order offers a unique opportunity to fully tune an insulator into a polar metal state with pressure, without doping-induced disorder or impurities. Our synchrotron and neutron diffraction data unambiguously show a structural transition and loss of the inversion...
Since the shutdown of the Orphée reactor, France is missing a national neutron facility to support its scientific community. Neutron sources worldwide are progressively transitioning from traditional reactor-based sources (such as ILL, Orphée, and FRM II) to pulsed sources (ESS, SNS, J-PARC). In parallel, the development of High Current Accelerator-driven Neutron Sources (HiCANS) offers a...
Fluids at solid interfaces are central to key technologies in energy conversion, electrochemistry, and catalysis, yet their nanoscale dynamics remain only partially understood. On metallic surfaces, recent studies have revealed unconventional interfacial phenomena—including complex electrostatic screening, anomalous wetting behavior, and quantum friction—that call for new modeling tools...
SAXS emerged in India in the group of Raman, then in the fifties of Kratky centered on the study of the empty cell by André Guinier in France and a dialogue of Kratky and Porod with Svedberg about proteins in solution. In the seventies and eighties absolute scaling at low-q and asymptotic laws at high-q started to be measured and were concomitant to the birth of science at nano-scale. ...
Firoz Malayil Kalathil, Marie Plazanet, Ingo Hoffmann, Sylvain Prévost, Thomas Zemb & Christiane Alba-Simionesco.
Ternary mixtures of oil, water and an hydrotrope can lead to complex and usable organization in terms of reactivity or solubility. This is the case of aqueous solutions of ethanol and oil, typically found in all kind of liquors, cosmetics or solvents for liquid-liquid...
