News

Recent developments at station ID7B2, jointly operated by MacCHESS and the HP-Bio project of CHEXS, demonstrate the use of high-pressure crystallography to examine the response of macromolecules to changes in pressure.

New research that exploited the unique strengths of the FAST beamline produced some of the first measurements of individual grain deformation in high entropy alloys. This data can help form accurate predictions of damage and failure processes in these emerging materials, critical for understanding their performance in real-world applications.

Hydrogen fuel cells generally require expensive and scarce platinum catalysts in order to function. Researchers have created highly reactive platinum-nickel nanowires with the potential to reduce the amount of platinum required in fuel cells. Research at PIPOXS examines the atomic-level mechanisms of this catalyst, forming a foundation for the development and commercialization of more efficient fuel cell technology.

Richard Gillilan, a MacCHESS/CHEXS staff scientist, has been named a member of the 2021 class of Fellows of the American Crystallographic Association (ACA), in recognition of his many career achievements.

Intertwining quantum order and non-trivial topology is at the frontier of condensed matter physics. In a new paper appearing in the journal Nature Materials, a team lead by M. Zahid Hasan from Princeton University reports the discovery of an unconventional chiral charge order in a kagome material, KV3Sb5.

In spring 2021, the fourth generation of Rotation and Axial Motion System (RAMS IV) load frame was commissioned with X-rays at the Structural Materials Beamline (SMB).

This is perhaps the first reported study  of  the temperature dependence of the dimensions of the high pressure unfolded state of a protein. These measurements strongly support the notion that pressure unfolded proteins do not differ significantly from proteins which are unfolded at atmospheric pressure. 

Sydor and the Cornell Detector Group worked with CHESS staff and users throughout both the original and commercial development of these new detectors, where CHESS served as a crucial venue for system testing. Now, Sydor aims to identify a few target user experiments at CHESS where researchers are interested in pushing the detectors to their limits.