X-ray snapshot: How light bends an active substance

An imaging technique established for decades applied to complex molecules for the first time

12-Mar-2025 - With the help of the world's most powerful X-ray laser, European XFEL, a research team led by Goethe University Frankfurt and the research centre DESY has achieved an important breakthrough: Using the example of the pharmaceutically active substance 2-thiouracil, they applied a long-established ...

High-efficiency water splitting process revealed

Reaction of high interest to clean-energy innovations is closely analysed in X-ray study

17-Feb-2023 - Experiments at DESY’s light sources PETRA III and FLASH have revealed the complex mode of action behind the artificial splitting of water at its most efficient level. Using X-rays, a team led by DESY leading scientist Simone Techert managed to observe the interaction of water with a perovskite, a ...

Rare insights into growing nanoparticles

“This is a key factor for the design of highly active catalysts and sensors with high sensitivity”

02-Sep-2022 - How exactly do nanoparticles form in solution? Researchers from Universität Hamburg and DESY have now been able to observe the growth of nanoparticles in solution in real time. In the journal Nature Communications, they report on their observations using the method of X-ray ptychography, which ...

Researchers watch nanomaterials growing in real time

New world record in the temporal resolution achieved using GISAXS, a surface-sensitive scattering technique

17-Feb-2021 - For the first time, a team of scientists has succeeded in capturing in real time the first few milliseconds in the life of a gold coating as it forms on a polymer. The team used DESY’s high-brilliance X-ray source PETRA III to observe the earliest stages in the growth of a metal-polymer hybrid ...

How molecular footballs burst in an X-ray laser beam

Study shows effect of X-ray flashes on sensitive biomolecules

26-Sep-2019 - An international research team has observed in real time how football molecules made of carbon atoms burst in the beam of an X-ray laser. The study shows the temporal course of the bursting process, which takes less than a trillionth of a second, and is important for the analysis of sensitive ...

Scientists develop printable water sensor

X-ray investigation reveals functioning of highly versatile copper-based compound

05-Mar-2019 - A new, versatile plastic-composite sensor can detect tiny amounts of water. The 3d printable material, developed by a Spanish-Israeli team of scientists, is cheap, flexible and non-toxic and changes its colour from purple to blue in wet conditions. The researchers lead by Pilar Amo-Ochoa from the ...

Fast charging cycles make batteries age more quickly

X-ray study images structural damage in lithium-ion batteries

16-Apr-2015 - Charging lithium-ion batteries too quickly can permanently reduce the battery capacity. Portions of the energy storage structure are thereby destroyed and deactivated. These structural changes have been visualized for the first time by DESY researcher Dr. Ulrike Bösenberg along with her team at ...

Scientists measure soot particles in flight

29-Jun-2012 - For the first time, air-polluting soot particles have been imaged in flight down to nanometre resolution. Pioneering a new technique, the international team, including researchers from DESY, snapped the most detailed images yet of airborne aerosols. “For the first time we can actually see the ...