Swedish Neutron Week 2025 to be held in Visby during early June

The Swedish Neutron Week serves as the yearly focal point of neutron activities in Sweden. As such, planning is progressing steadily and we can share some updates regarding the conference in this newsletter. As previously anounced, the gathering will take place in Visby (Gotland) with the following dates: 9-11 June:        Strategic, Technical and […]

Student’s Spotlight – Arun Haridas Choolakkal

Arun Haridas Choolakkal, a final-year PhD student at the Thin Film Physics division of Linköping University, is set to defend his thesis in December 2024. His research is a significant contribution to the filed of solid-state neutron detectors, driven by the need for alternative to 3He neutron detectors. Arun’s PhD project centres on the development […]

SwedNess Graduate School in Japan

SwedNess graduate school, PhD students from 6 SwedNess Universities (Lund University, Linköping University, Chalmers University of Technology, Stockholm University, Uppsala University, and KTH Royal Institute of Technology), spent the last week of August in Japan Proton Accelerator Research Complex (J-PARC) in Japan. The program included a full-day-lecture by neutron experts from J-PARC, visiting the Hardon […]

Student’s Spotlight – Elena Naumovska

Elena Naumovska is a PhD student from Chalmers University of Technology. The search for renewable energy solutions has increased the interest in proton conducting perovskite-type oxides, particularly for their application in intermediate temperature fuel cells. Elena adopts a multi-technique approach to investigate these materials. Her research aims to identify key questions regarding the local structure […]

Student’s Spotlight – Bradley Green

Bradley is a PhD student in Materials Chemistry at the Centre for Analysis and Synthesis, within Lund University. His project focuses on small angle scattering of both neutrons and x-rays, alongside a handful of complimentary techniques commonly used within the soft matter realm.   Bradley’s current work explores the nanoscale structure of a class of […]

Call for collaborative Sweden-ILL PhD projects

As part of the Scientific Member agreement between Sweden and the Institut Laue Langevin (ILL) for the period 2024 – 2029, 4 four-year PhD projects are available to be filled as soon as possible. These projects are intended to strengthen the Swedish neutron scattering community in all regions and across a range of scientific areas […]

List of Upcoming Events Surrounding Neutron Scattering

Within Sweden Northern Lights on Food Conference: Boosting structural food science, Lund  –  27-29 May 2024 Swedish Neutron Week, Lund  –  29-31 May 2024   Outside Sweden QENS/WINS 2024, Manchester (UK)  –  10-14 June 2024 SXNS17, 17th International Conference on Surface X-ray and Neutron Scattering, Grenoble (France)  –  15-18 July 2024 MATRAC 2 school, Neutrons […]

Improved polarizing neutron optics with increased reflectivity, enhanced polarization, less diffuse scattering and eliminated magnetic coercivity

by Anton Zubayer Neutron optics are essential parts of neutron scattering facilities, where they guide, collimate, focus, and polarize the neutron beam tailored to each beamlines experiments. The most common neutron optics are multilayer neutron optics which are characterized by alternating layers of materials. For polarizing neutron optics, one of the layers must be magnetic […]

Swedish Neutron Week 2024 to be held in May

We are pleased to announce that the Swedish Neutron Week 2024 will be organized in Lund, with Lund University and ESS as local organizers. The conference will be held at Stadshallen 29th – 31st May 2024. The event is jointly arranged by SNSS, SwedNess, ESS and Lund University, and is open to everyone who is, or wish to be, part of the Swedish neutron scattering […]

Student’s Spotlight – Ratchawit (Leo) Janewithayapun

Leo is a PhD student at Chalmers University working on the characterization and synthesis of melt-processable materials derived from wheat bran. Polysaccharides, such as cellulose or xylan are not melt-processable in their native state. However, with chemical modification, these abundant natural polymers can be transformed into materials exhibiting plastic-like processability and mechanical properties. In his […]

Student’s Spotlight – Karthika Kariattukarakaran Thilakan

Karthika is a PhD student from Uppsala University, working on the structure-property relationship in magnetic materials. Her primary focus involves working with metallic alloys, specifically magnetic quasicrystal approximants. Her research project consists of two main parts: the first delves into complex magnetic structures, with a focus on understanding non-trivial magnetic ground states and identifying universal […]

The Onset of Molecule-Spanning Dynamics in Heat Shock Protein Hsp90

by Felix Roosen-Runge Proteins are the biomacromolecular motors of life. While earlier accounts stressed the lock-key concept of protein function, a more complete understanding needs to take into account motions and molecular flexibility as ingredients how specific functions can be performed. In particular, larger conformational changes are known to reflect allosteric changes from active to […]

Student’s Spotlight – Juanita Francis

Juanita is a third-year PhD student from Lund University, focused on understanding the formation of silk model systems—specifically, recombinant Cylindriform silk and reconstituted silkworm silk. Her project will help in developing new design rules for mediating protein self-assembly by examining the aqueous polymer processing exhibited by cylindriform silk proteins. The transfer of this technology could […]

Interaction of a Histidine-Rich Antimicrobial Saliva Peptide with Model Cell Membranes: The Role of Histidines

by Amanda Eriksson Skog, Yuri Gerelli and Marie Skepö Here we present a continuation study of our previous paper, Spontaneous Formation of Cushioned Model Membranes Promoted by an Intrinsically Disordered Protein, in which we found that upon the interaction of Histatin 5 (Hst5) with a model lipid bilayer, a peptide cushion spontaneously forms underneath the […]

A Comprehensive Experimental Approach to Multifunctional Quantum Materials & their Physical Properties – Geometry and Physics in Condensed Matter

by Elisabetta Nocerino Symmetry-breaking phenomena underpin various intriguing physical properties in condensed matter such as magnetism [1,2,3,4] and superconductivity [5,6]. Understanding such fundamental properties holds significant importance for the development of cutting-edge technologies, including spintronics, quantum computing, and advanced magnetic materials, as well as foster innovation in energy-related applications [7]. The crystalline solid NaCr2O4 represents […]

A guide to spatially resolved phase and texture evaluation by diffraction contrast neutron imaging

The physical properties of structural as well as functional components are largely governed by the materials microstructure. In polycrystalline materials, the crystallographic phase and preferred grain orientation (texture) can dominate the physical properties. A range of microscopy and diffraction techniques are hence routinely used for their characterization, but are prone to miss local variations across […]

Coexisting curved and flat membranes

The complexity of cellular membranes is not only reflected by their wide molecular composition but also in the wide range of morphologies with coexisting high and low curvature regions. Very little is known about the nanostructure of curved membranes, due to limitations in experimental and simulation approaches. Even though curvature-induced microscopic phase separation has been […]

Webinar Registration: Structure Generation for MD Simulations of Soft Matter Systems

It is our great pleasure to invite you to an online launch event and workshop to showcase two new software workflows which will be of interest to the Small-angle Scattering and Disordered Materials communities. The development of these tools has been funded by the Ada Lovelace Centre and they are intended to offer users new […]

Advancements in Thermal Neutron Scattering Law Generation

The design of neutron systems, for example nuclear reactors and neutron sources, requires the usage of Monte-Carlo simulation software to predict the distributions of neutrons throughout the system. At low energies, the interactions of neutrons with a material is driven by interactions on the atomic and molecular scale and thus a proper description of this […]