ISIS HRPD Science Highlights

HRPD Science Highlights

Our Science Highlight articles cover the diverse research that takes place at our facility. Read all our Science Highlight articles using HRPD below:

Being hydrated is key for electrolyte materials in low temperature fuel cells
A team from the universities of Warwick, Nottingham and Monash, and ISIS, have found that keeping a fuel cell electrolyte humid improves its low temperature conductivity.
Surprises found in combined diffraction and spectroscopy study
A study of iron pentacarbonyl has revealed some unexpected results, thanks to the unique insight gained from using neutrons.
Raman on Mars – not noodles but vibrations!
Researchers have fully characterised the structure of the material rozenite to act as a reference for space scientists studying rocks from Mars to look for signs of water.
Neutrons enable the distinction between single-k and multi-k structures
Researchers show that it is possible to distinguish between single-k and multi-k structures without the need for single crystals or external fields.
Neutron experiments confirm the existence of new form of ice
Using diffraction experiments on HRPD, Austrian researchers have confirmed the existence of an exotic form of ice: Ice XIX.
HRPD helps find a way to make ice cubic
Despite the common shape of ice in your freezer being a cube, the structure of ice crystals is actually hexagonal. For the first time, scientists have been able to make a form of ice that is actually cubic.
A neutron analysis of a promising magnonics material
Improper Ferroelectricity caused by bonding rather than size
A new material has been discovered that becomes an improper ferroelectric due to a break in symmetry caused solely by an electronically driven transition, rather than a geometric (size-driven) transformation.
Using multiple beamlines enables a full structural characterisation
A project involving experiments on three beamlines at ISIS, and the Diamond Light Source, has determined the structural phase diagram of La2NiMnO6 under high pressure.
ISIS ice research is a hot topic
A publication based on experiments at ISIS has been selected by the journal editors as a ‘hot article’ to appear in their online rolling collection of featured articles.
Thinking outside the triangle: Quantum Spin Liquid formed in an unexpected way
A team of researchers from the University of Liverpool and McMaster University observed unusual magnetic behaviour in the perovskite-related metal oxide TbInO3 using HRPD, MuSR and EMU at ISIS.
A computer-generated roadmap to new materials
Researchers at the University of Liverpool developed a strategy to speed up the discovery of new materials.
Neutrons, muons and the battery revolution
The last two decades have brought a real revolution in personal electronics, all powered by the lithium-ion (Li-ion) battery.
Helping the hunt for lead-free piezoelectrics
Piezoelectrics are a class of material that generates an electric charge when subject to mechanical stress. Discovered by Pierre and Jacques Curie in 1880, an early application of the phenomenon was in sonar during the First World War.
New magnetic phase discovered in iron-based superconductors
Scientists from the U.S. Department of Energy’s Argonne National Laboratory have discovered a previously unknown phase in a class of superconductors called iron arsenides using ISIS.
Studying recrystallization of deformed metals – a new tool for metallurgy?
Recrystallization of deformed metals occurs in a lot of industrial processes, including the hot-deformation and heat treatment of metals and alloys.
Molecules make the perfect filling for a superconducting sandwich
Since the discovery in 2008 of superconducting materials based on iron there has been intense research into how their superconducting critical temperature can be increased.
Giant magneto-elastic coupling could lead to more efficient fridges
ISIS has helped scientists gather new data on how a material behaves at high temperatures and in strong magnetic fields which could lead to more efficient fridges and cooling systems.
From outer space volcanoes to nanotechnology
Neutron scattering conducted at ISIS and the Institut Laue-Langevin (ILL) has discovered that methanol crystals that may be found in outer solar system ‘ice lavas’ have unusual expansion properties.
Tipping the magneto-elastic balance
‘Smart’ materials display a plethora of potentially useful properties, and these can interact with each other giving rise to new phenomena.
Strain at a phase transition in perovskite suppressed by cation disorder
Phase transitions in perovskites and their variants, of general formula ABX3, are important for technological applications and also of great interest in the earth sciences.
Charge order to remove orbital degeneracy in triangular antiferromagnet AgNiO2
The layered hexagonal magnet AgNiO2 realizes a unique example of a triangular antiferromagnet with both spin and orbital moment (Ni3+ with one eg electron) and with metallic conductivity.
Ice cold in Titan
Neutrons explore the materials thought to makeup the mantles of the icy moons of the Solar System.
Coupling of orbital, spin, and lattice degrees of freedom in Tl2Ru2O7
Phase transitions