Completed Materials & Manufacturing Physics & Astronomy

Exploiting XMaS Studies of Highly Correlated Electron Systems, Real Surfaces and Biomaterials

Funder EPSRC (part of UKRI)
Recipient organisation University of Warwick
Funding £1.9M
Period Sept 2007 — Sept 2012

In plain English

AI plain-English summary

A synchrotron beamline in Grenoble, France, is keeping its doors open for a third five-year period to serve a dozen UK research groups who need its specialised X-ray diffraction capabilities. The XMaS beamline at the European Synchrotron Radiation Facility (ESRF) offers unique sample environments—particularly low temperatures, high magnetic fields, and polarisation analysis—that are not available at the UK’s newer Diamond Light Source. These tools allow researchers to probe the electronic structure of highly correlated electron systems: magnets, superconductors, and colossal magnetoresistance compounds. Without XMaS, these UK groups would lose access to a mature facility that has already delivered highlighted work on charge ordering and electronic structure. The beamline also supports non-resonant scattering studies of real surfaces—from quantum dots to self-organised arrays—and applied work on electrolysis, electrocatalysis, corrosion of cultural heritage objects, and biomaterials such as strain in dentine and scattering signatures of biological tissue. This is primarily a facility-support grant, not a single discovery project. Its impact is enabling: it sustains internationally competitive fundamental science across condensed matter physics, chemistry, and materials science. A joint postdoctoral appointment with Diamond will transfer know-how to the UK facility, ensuring continuity for the community.

View original technical description
Funding is requested for a third operational period of the UK CRG XMaS at ESRF, which provides a facility for internationally competitive SR-based diffraction studies for over a dozen UK research groups predominantly from university Physics, and Chemistry departments. The beamline, which opened to users in 1998, is staffed by a team of 5 based at ESRF and co-directed from Liverpool (CA Lucas) and Warwick (MJ Cooper) and has been supported by two successive 5yr EPSRC operational grants to date. It is distinguished by its unique sample environment and analysis facilities, especially low temperature high magnetic field and polarisation analysis which have led to highlighted resonant x-ray diffraction work on in highly correlated systems such as magnets, superconductors and CMR compounds, rare earth and actinide multilayers, establishing details of the charge ordering and the electronic structure. In addition non resonant scattering from real surfaces has ranged from quantum dots to self organised arrays and the study of electrolysis in relationship to electrocatalyis and the corrosion of cultural heritage objects; in addition the beam line accommodates diverse work on biomaterials (strain in dentine, scattering signatures of biological tissue).The beamline, which is a mature facility, will work with the emerging UK facility DIAMOND, which cannot provide comparable research facilities in the period in question for the size and diversity of the UK community, to ensure a comprehensive provision for the UK community and transfer of know-how via a joint PDRA appointment.

View the original record at the funder ↗

Researchers

Malcolm Cooper (Co-Investigator)Thomas Hase (Principal Investigator)

Related Research

Grants with similar aims, by meaning.

KB mirror project for XMaS
XMaS: The UK Materials Science Facility at the ESRF
XMaS Capital Equipment Upgrade
A Single-Crystal X-ray Diffractometer for High-Power, High-Throughput Chemical Crystallography
XMaS: The National Material Science Beamline Research Facility at the ESRF

Original classification

Research Grant

Plain English summaries and category classifications on this site are generated by AI and may not perfectly reflect the original research.