Spinel oxides are ceramics with exciting electronic and electrochemical properties. Spinels have important roles in devices such as batteries and fuel cells, but there are limits to their integration because of their low electronic conductivity. The conventional model to describe charge transport in oxides was developed six decades ago and had not been tested on complex materials such as ternary spinel oxides, and, as a result, impeding the ability to understand and improve the conductivity of oxides.

The HMF beamline, to be located at CHESS’s Center for High Energy X-ray Science (CHEXS), is a partnership with the National High Magnetic Field Laboratory (MagLab) in Florida and the University of Puerto Rico (UPR).

We are now collaborating more closely than ever to address targeted questions about the quantum states of materials, as highlighted by a series of recent results involving measurements and/or co-authors from both labs. For example, research lead by by Jooseop Lee (IBS-CALDES) draws on collaborations with the Baumbach group at the MagLab and the QM2 program at CHESS to understand a previously-overlooked charge-density-wave phase in UPt₂Si₂.

Broader Impacts

The Cornell High Energy Synchrotron Source, CHESS, has reopened for researchers after a long shutdown due to CoVID-19. Users who typically travel from all over the world to perform research at CHESS are now able to study their samples by logging in remotely from their home institution.

The paper, Understanding Micromechanical Material Behavior Using Synchrotron X-rays and In Situ Loading, is the only one in the collection on high energy x-ray work. All of the authors of the paper are CHESS or Cornell researchers.

The full 50th anniversary collection can be found here.

The internships aim to introduce eligible undergraduates, many of whom come from backgrounds underrepresented in academia, to the nation’s top research universities. Student participants receive faculty and graduate student guidance over an eight- to 10-week period, during which they perform graduate-level research and participate in professional development programming.

The CHESS-U upgrade project reconfigured and optimized the storage ring for the production of intense x-ray beams and learning is ongoing about the positron beam’s position dependence on the temperature, mechanical and electrical stability of the magnets and beam chambers.

There are many questions about the behavior of proteins under pressure that have not been experimentally resolved. Some very simple but important examples are: how does a protein crystal’s structure change as a function of pressure, and how large an external pressure can be sustained by the crystal?  To answer such questions, X-ray crystallography is the obvious method of choice, but requires the use of a pressure cell capable of precise control of pressure, with small steps between successive pressures.