In the Industrial Strategy, the Government has identified eight sectors that have the greatest growth potential over the next decade and a critical role to play in supporting economic security and resilience, net zero and regional growth.
ISIS is a key part of research that supports many of these sectors, from industrial testing of electronics used in aviation to studying the structure of lipid nanoparticles for drug delivery. This is an overview of recent work at ISIS that is contributing to the themes of the Industrial Strategy.
Critical capabilities
Across these sectors, researchers make the most of the critical capabilities offered by ISIS. These include:
- The ability to observe light elements in the presence of heavy elements.
- Penetration of neutrons and muons into samples allows the study of large or delicate components
- In-situ, in-operando studies often in extreme and hazardous environments
- The quantitative study of the dynamics of matter
- An ability to image components and materials in three dimensions from the atomic through to macroscopic lengthscale
- A unique ability to characterise complex magnetic and superconducting systems
- Generation of large, deep and rich datasets for machine learning training and data driven materials discovery.
- An exceptionally broad base of foundational research bringing together global and UK academic communities.
Clean Energy
The Government's sector plan for clean energy is focussed on wind, nuclear fission and fusion, hydrogen, carbon capture, heat pumps and other critical technologies.
Wind
Our engineering-focussed beamline enables the structural integrity of wind turbine blades and other components, including the bearings and monopiles.
One example is a collaboration between the UK and Norway studying the structural integrity of wind turbine foundations.
Nuclear fission
Using ISIS for studying engineering components has been extremely useful for our industrial and academic collaborators in the nuclear industry, who have studied reactor materials and graphite moderators. AREVA used our Engin-X beamline to study the effect of new welding techniques, and EDF have used our SANS2D beamline to look at how they could extend the life of Advanced Gas Cooler Reactors.
Ensuring the safety of these reactors is also a critical area of research, with groups using ISIS to study how materials age inside a nuclear reactor, and developing new methods for detecting hazardous radioisotopes.
W e also work with other research facilities across the Harwell Campus, including collaborating with Diamond Light Source on the use of Metal Organic Frameworks for application in the nuclear industry.
Fusion energy
We offer a unique capability for the characterisation and development of fusion materials and components and have the ability to study active components.
We have collaborated with UK AEA on a number of activities in their fusion research, including establishing a technique for testing prototypes before manufacturing hundreds of thousands of monoblocks for use in the fusion reactor DEMO . They have also visited ISIS to measure residual strain in reactor components, and this work contributed to Dr Tan Sui from the University of Surrey winning one of our 2025 Impact Awards.
Our new NILE facility is a source of 14MeV neutrons that can be used for testing materials under the conditions they would experience in a fusion reactor (publication joint with UK AEA in production).
Separating the different isotopes of hydrogen is a complex task, necessary for fusion applications. One way of doing this is to use zeolites. As neutrons interact differently with each isotope, they are an ideal tool for investigating the selective adsorption of these materials.
Second generation high-temperature superconductors (2G HTS) tapes have key applications in areas such as fusion, MRI and the electrical grid. In a collaboration between Faraday Factory Japan LLC, the world's largest producer of 2G HTS tapes, and ISIS, the Engin-X neutron diffractometer was used to apply strain to tape samples.
Carbon capture, usage and storage
As well as looking at whether shale could be used to store carbon dioxide, and whether different shale structures could have different storage potential, we support an extensive research programme of scientists studying the carbon storage properties of metal organic frameworks, which could be used as carbon stores.
Combining studies from two ISIS beamlines has enabled scientists to study solvents used in carbon capture technologies, to investigate what was occurring at the atomic level when post-combustion capture fails.
ISIS staff have worked with industrial and academic collaborators to develop a new piece of equipment for testing a process that not only permanently captures carbon dioxide but turns it into a greener ingredient for making concrete. This enables them to study this process in real time.
Hydrogen
The unique interaction between neutrons and hydrogen enables investigations that are not possible with other techniques, enabling a large body of work in research areas that are crucial to the advancement of the hydrogen economy. In this video, we hear from some researchers working in the field who rely on ISIS for their studies.
Recent work has looked at metal hydrides for hydrogen storage, oxide materials for fuel cell components, fuel cell electrolytes and novel ways to manufacture these materials. The unique view of muons has also been exploited by Toyota, who have used ISIS to study hydrogen storage systems during cycling.
If hydrogen is to become a common energy vector in the UK, it is crucial for safety that accurate hydrogen sensors are commonly available. One recent study has used ISIS to study the possibility of using ice as a hydrogen storage material. As well as hydrogen storage, fuel cell membranes have also been studied at ISIS, with neutron studies key to the development of new formulations.
In parallel with hydrogen technology, we have a group of scientists based at ISIS are studying the feasibility of developing an ammonia economy. This work includes the design and build of a green ammonia plant based at the Rutherford Appleton Laboratory.
Heat pumps
Heat-storage technology has a key role to play in increasing both energy efficiency and the use of renewables in the heating and cooling sector. Heating and cooling contribute almost 40% of global energy-related carbon emissions. The core component of heat-battery technology is a phase change material that absorbs heat on melting and releases it on freezing. Experiments carried out on the high-pressure instrument Pearl provided the team with fundamental insights into the behaviour of these materials.
Advanced Manufacturing
Automotive
Our imaging and engineering beamlines enable the measurement of the structural integrity of components, which can be used for the characterisation of automotive materials and the development of new components.
We have a longstanding collaboration with the speciality chemical company Infineum, which has included the development of a new neutron reflectivity setup to recreate what happens to surfactants inside an engine. This work contributed towards Professor Pete Dowding from Infineum being awarded one of our 2025 Impact Awards.
The high pressure beamline at ISIS has been used for studying the structure of biodiesel under the conditions inside an engine, whilst neutron spectroscopy has been used to study more environmentally-sustainable catalysts for producing biofuel, as part of a collaboration with Indonesia.
As driverless cars become more widespread, there is a need to ensure the technology inside them is resilient to cosmic radiation. Our dedicated irradiation beamlines are used regularly by academia and industry to test the resilience of their electronic devices.
Batteries
Many groups come to ISIS to characterise and develop novel battery materials using both neutron and muons. This includes, but is not limited to, a partnership with the Faraday Institution and its research groups, including a joint appointment.
The unique interaction of neutrons with lithium is extremely useful when studying lithium-ion battery materials. Our imaging capabilities enable us to look inside commercial batteries as they charge and discharge, to see where issues are occurring that limit performance. We have also carried out structural studies in partnership with industry to give a greater insight into battery cycle life.
There are many ways that muon techniques can be used to study battery materials. This includes studying lithium-ore samples to inform extraction techniques.
We also have enabled research into the possibility of using sodium or magnesium instead or lithium, as these elements are more readily available. Another alternative to conventional batteries is the use of a solid electrolyte to improve the safety and the amount of energy that the battery can store.
Although battery storage is commonly considered for vehicular applications, flow batteries are a promising technology for long-duration grid-scale energy storage. Neutron experiments were used to study the behaviour of water in the pores of a flow battery membrane. This work contributed towards Dr Fabrizia Foglia from UCL being awarded one of our 2025 Impact Awards.
Aerospace
Our imaging and engineering beamlines enable the measurement of the structural integrity of aircraft components. For example, neutron diffraction was used to understand how to prevent aircraft components being deformed during manufacturing.
Gaining unique insights into the internal stresses occurring in aircraft materials built by laser shock peening has enabled the development of accurate models for predicting their lifetime and assurance of their structural integrity.
Space
The complex sample environments available to researchers using ISIS enables the recreation of the conditions found during planetary formation, and on the moon. Neutron techniques have led to the development of a new approach to characterise stony meteorites to investigate the formation of the solar system, and neutron imaging has been used for studying Martian meteorites.
Making lighter tanks for storing the fuel on a spacecraft would mean that space vessels can travel longer distances as well as carrying more payload. Recently a new composite material was studied at ISIS that would reduce overall external tank weight by 2%.
Deep learning is a critical factor in the safety of automotive and aerospace applications. Neutron experiments on can help improve their reliability and prevent failures in the field.
Neutron reflectometry has been used to validate atmospheric pollution models, studying both model systems and particles taken from the atmosphere.
Advanced materials
ISIS offers unique capabilities for the development and characterisation of a wide range of materials.
This includes the study of catalysts for making cleaner fuels and improving processes for a more sustainable future. This is supported by a long-term collaboration with the UK Catalysis Hub, also based at the Rutherford Appleton Laboratory.
Muon spectroscopy is a very sensitive probe for local magnetic field inside a sample, making it a key technique for investigating superconducting materials, such as the unconventional superconductor HfRhGe.
Yttrium barium copper oxide materials have attracted significant attention as materials exhibiting superconductivity with a critical temperature around 90 K. Neutron powder diffraction has offered key insights into the structure and crystal chemistry of these materials, contributing to a better understanding of the superconducting mechanism.
The thermoelectric effect is a phenomenon in which a temperature difference can be converted into electric voltage and vice versa. Neutron studies at ISIS revealed unusual vibrational modes in filled skutterudites antimonides – a class of compounds being investigated as thermoelectric materials. The low-energy vibrational modes were attributed to the rattling of rare-earth ions, which modified their thermodynamic behaviour. Insights from these studies helped to pave the way for designing new thermoelectric materials.
Neutrons are an ideal tool for studying barocaloric materials, which undergo reversible temperature changes when pressure is applied or released making them promising options for environmentally friendly cooling and heating. Neutrons provide information about how the atoms in the structure are moving, as well as their positions and are highly sensitive to hydrogen. This enables researchers to build a complete picture of a material and the entropy changes associated with a phase change.
Additive manufacturing is a production technique that builds a component layer by layer, to the specification of a 3D model. This enables intricate parts to be made at a small scale without the need for large investment in rarely used manufacturing equipment. A Canadian research collaboration including Siemens Energy and scientists from the University of Western Ontario used neutron diffraction on Engin-X to understand the microstructural changes caused by altering different parameters during one type of additive manufacturing. As neutrons can penetrate up to several centimetres into these materials, they are an ideal tool to use to study their internal structure. The specialised setup on the Engin-X beamline meant that the researchers were able to study the internal structure at the same time as compressing them, to test how they would behave in a real-world scenario.
The Swedish multinational engineering company Sandvik, in collaboration with the spin-out company Scatterin, used two ISIS beamlines to characterise the materials used in their cutting tools, providing information they can use to improve them.
Many modern technologies, such as hydrogen storage, aerospace and superconducting magnets, operate at very low temperature. Under these cryogenic conditions, conventional materials typically become brittle, but a recent ISIS experiment identified a type of steel that retains excellent strength and ductility as low as 77 K, making it ideal for these applications.
ISIS's ChipIr beamline offers the unique capability to characteristic the resilience of electronic components, such as vision transformers run on Google Coral processing units, to atmospheric neutrons.
Small angle neutron scattering at ISIS has been used in research into the development of organic photovoltaics that have long lasting stability.
Metal-organic frameworks (MOFs) are of interest for various applications, including substrate storage and separation, catalysis, drug delivery and sensing. Neutron scattering, combined with synchrotron X-ray diffraction and DFT calculations, has provided detailed insights into supramolecular interactions within MOFs. These interactions are often very challenging to study but are crucial for understanding host–guest binding in many chemical and biological processes.
Agri-tech
Understanding what goes on underground without disturbing a plant is difficult, but has been made easier by the appearance of techniques that can image the soil non-invasively. Because of the high neutron sensitivity to the hydrogen present in water in the soil and the roots, Neutron Computed Tomography is an extremely valuable technique and has been used to been used to map the root structure of wheat plants in life-like soil conditions.
The manufacture of mineral fertilisers such as ammonium nitrate or urea produces almost 2% of global greenhouse gas emissions. Organo-mineral fertilisers use much less of these mineral ingredients, combining them with organic material such as manure or straw and even carbon dioxide captured from carbon emissions. For the first time, large-scale facilities including ISIS were used to evaluate the physical and chemical properties of these fertiliser pellets.
Pesticides are widespread in the agriculture industry to minimise the effects of weeds, pests and diseases on crops, but the health impact on the farmers using the pesticides is rarely considered. A recent neutron study delved into this issue, observing how surfactants responsible for the irritation interact with the eye.
Key to the mission of reducing our reliance on crude oil is biomass, a renewable carbon-based feedstock. But lignin, a significant component of biomass, has historically been difficult to convert into useful products. Researchers from the University of Bath used the Osiris instrument to probe the behaviour of biomass derivatives within commercial porous zeolite catalysts.
An ISIS collaboration with Indonesia aims to establish a viable method of using palm oil biomass waste in place of the palm oil itself to meet government targets without affecting the local food industry. They have developed a new catalyst based on bentonite clay, a renewable and abundant resource in Indonesia.
Green packaging manufacturer Tensei uses agri-residues to produce sustainable papers and adhesives. They used ISIS to study their materials, giving them a unique insight that will be very beneficial in their further development.
Digital and Technologies
Artificial intelligence
ISIS scientists have developed an artificial intelligence (AI) software, ChemDataExtractor, and used it to mine the scientific literature for materials and property information and collate it to auto-generate very large experimental materials databases for the scientific community. One of these databases includes data from over 125,000 journal articles on semiconducting materials and their properties. They have applied a similar method for organic materials for use in solar cells. Having quick access to this large quantity of experimental data is hugely valuable for the ISIS user community.
There are also groups using AI at ISIS to develop the experimental processes themselves. Recently, a group from the US used a robotic sample preparation platform, driven by artificial intelligence (AI), to undertake simultaneous experiments at both ISIS and Diamond Light Source.
The rapid advancement of generative artificial intelligence has significantly increased the demand for both energy and data storage. One promising solution is the use of magneto-ionics. By applying a voltage to these materials, the ions inside them move, changing the magnetic properties. An international collaboration used neutrons to study a magneto-ionic system, highlighting its exceptional functionality and versatility.
Quantum Technologies
Our limited knowledge of the quantum mechanical world will be holding us back from realising better high-performance computing, quantum computing, and other transformative technologies. This is why curiosity driven research and materials discovery occupies such an important role in society's response to its grand challenges. We can only unlock new technological capabilities by understanding the basic properties of materials and identifying new trends in their behaviour that can 'emerge' under certain conditions.
Scientists at ISIS Neutron and Muon Source alongside industrial and academic partners are researching a range of materials that could have applications in next generation storage devices or new technologies for pro cessing information.
The quantum spin liquid state, theorised over 40 years ago, involves magnetic moments behaving like a liquid, resisting freezing even at absolute zero. QSLs could have extraordinary properties and applications in quantum computing and communication, but they are challenging to identify experimentally. Neutron scattering and muon spectroscopy have characterised a genuine spin-liquid state, validating theoretical predictions on relevant spin models.
Near absolute zero, thermal fluctuations are absent and phase transitions are dominated by quantum fluctuations. This gives rise to new behaviour, such as superconductivity, arising from a quantum critical point (QCP). Inelastic neutron scattering measurements have provided experimental evidence to support the QCP concept and show that it influences the behaviour of real materials that lie close to the QCP.
Magnetic skyrmions offer the prospect of storing information on far smaller scales than existing technologies. This relies on understanding and exploiting different ways of keeping them stable. By using muon spin spectroscopy an international research team has revealed a contributor to this stability for a class of materials that had not previously been understood.
Semiconductors
Muons are very useful for investigating semiconducting materials, as they can act as a probe to look at the electronic structure deep in the material, not just at the surface. A recent example investigating silicon wafers used muon spectroscopy in combination with laser light to study the recombination of electrons and holes inside silicon, a commonly used semiconducting material in solar cells. The detailed study enabled them to not only observe the electron/hole recombination dynamics but also to validate the technique itself, which they will be able to use to study other systems.
Muons can also be used as a model for hydrogen, itself an impurity relevant to semiconducting materials. As hydrogen is so difficult to detect by many spectroscopic techniques, muons are able to provide an insight into the materials that cannot be gained elsewhere.
As well as conventional semiconducting materials, ISIS scientists have also studied organic semiconductors such as TCNQ and novel materials such as the first atomic‐scale double helical semiconductor, SnIP, which offers exceptional electronic properties. In both examples, inelastic neutron scattering (INS) experiments were done to fully understand the structure of these molecular semiconductors. Because INS does not have the same selection rules as optical spectroscopic techniques, some of the vibrational modes in these systems are only visible using neutrons.
Semiconducting materials, including organic semiconductors, have also been studied on ChipIr to investigate their resilience to cosmic radiation. This is particularly important for aviation applications, where electronic failures can have catastrophic impact. These experiments can only be done at large scale neutron facilities such as ISIS.
Life Sciences
Since the opening of ISIS' target station 2, there has been an increasing number of experiments being carried out in the life sciences. Even in the last five years, there have been over 200 publications in this subject area, which have been cited over 1600 times.
Ozone, usually present in the upper atmosphere, can be formed at ground level as a by-product of burning fossil fuels. It is harmful to lungs when inhaled, but scientists are not sure what exactly is happening in the lungs. Researchers have used neutrons at ISIS to look at how ozone attacks lipid molecules in lung surfactant – the first of the body's defences against ozone.
Sulfur dioxide is another gas that can have severe effects on human health. A recent study by a group of international researchers has used ISIS to develop a metal-organic framework, MFM-170 (shown, left), that can selectively take in toxic sulfur dioxide gas at record concentrations and preserve it for use in chemical production.
Pharmaceuticals
With the unique insight from neutron reflectometry, former ISIS-funded PhD student Nicoló Paracini and his supervisors have discovered how the last-resort antibiotic polymyxin B breaks down bacterial membranes. Cold neutrons, with wavelengths comparable to X-rays perfectly suit studying biological membranes. Unlike X-rays, neutrons carry only a few meV of energy rather than several keV, preventing membrane damage during measurement.
Our Sandals instrument has been used by the pharmaceuticals company Allergan plc to study clusters of water in amorphous pharmaceuticals. Dr Evgenyi Shalaev, Executive Director of Pharmaceutical Sciences for Allergan plc; “Fundamental research at ISIS is essential in building scientific basis for development of novel pharmaceutical and biopharmaceutical products."
The drug alprazolam, which is used to treat anxiety disorders, was studied using the Sandals beamline, to understand the way that drugs can, or cannot, cross the blood-brain barrier.
In 2021, the first ever quasi-elastic neutron scattering experiment to study human tissue was carried out at ISIS (researchers shown right), using the unique properties of neutrons to build on previous work on cells that looked at the difference between cancerous and healthy cells. Neutrons interact well with water, which this research group have found could actually hold the key to cancer treatment, as the water within the cells responded to the widely used chemotherapy drug, cisplatin.
Other research groups have looked at the cause of cancerous growths, studying the protein Bcl-2, present inside cells, which can promote cancerous growth. They were able to study the protein's structure and behaviour inside a membrane using neutron reflectometry.
Lipid nanoparticle encapsulation is one of the most successful non-viral delivery technologies to shield mRNA from degradation. Small-angle neutron and X-ray scattering have improved understanding of the enhanced mRNA functional delivery of lipid nanoparticles formulated using a high-throughput platform.
Scientists from the University of Manchester and Imperial College London, in collaboration with ISIS and the pharmaceutical company AstraZeneca, have investigated the effect of pH on how a monoclonal antibody binds to a solid interface. Antibody binding has implications for drug delivery, and the design of biosensors.
Medical Technologies
At ISIS, researchers have taken a novel approach to one of the challenges of ageing, studying a material found in meteorites to learn more about how it could be used as a bone replacement.
ISIS beamlines have also been used for studying novel therapy methods, including the use of nanoparticles in 19F MRI. The nanoparticles have since been approved for a pilot clinical trial, and a spin-off company has also been set up. Other novel drug delivery methods studied at ISIS include the use of polymeric micelles, biocompatible polymers and even anthrax and sugar.
Recent research using the Sans2D instrument at ISIS studied the growth rate and length of amyloid fibril fibres: protein deposits that have been linked to human diseases such as Alzheimer's and Parkinson's. Understanding how these fibrils grow could inform the treatment of these diseases and other areas of bioscience that rely on protein folding and self-assembly.
The disease atherosclerosis is the leading cause of death in the western world; it occurs when plaques accumulate in blood vessels, which can lead to the hardening of arteries and eventually heart disease and stroke. Recent research on Sans2D has looked at the lipoproteins that transport cholesterol through the blood, to understand the mechanism of this transport to inform the understanding and treatment of the disease.
Using neutron techniques, a group of researchers from Canada, the USA and ISIS found that vitamin E acetate, a common additive in illegal vaping, led to the softening of phospholipid model membranes, explaining its link to lung injury.
Hydrogels are well-established as excellent candidates for biomedical applications, including wound treatment, tissue engineering and controlled drug release. Multiple research groups use ISIS for studying hydrogels, including one group focussing on chemotherapy drug delivery and another developing HIV treatment gels.
While synthetic- and bio-polymers are used extensively as building blocks in hydrogels, the potential of folded and functional protein-based hydrogels is just beginning to emerge. A study using two ISIS beamlines demonstrated that single protein stabilisation, through ligand binding, can translate to the mechanical properties of the whole cross-linked protein network.
Creative Industries
Film and TV
Snow Business , located in Stroud, Gloucestershire, is the world's leading supplier of artificial snow for TV, films and stage and exhibition sets. Prior to 2016, their most effective snow fluid was based on petrochemical ingredients, which could cause respiratory and skin problems as well as leaving a harmful residue that could damage the local environment.
Professor Wuge Briscoe's group at Bristol have a wealth of expertise in the chemistry of thin films, having built up a detailed understanding of the interfacial structure of polymers and surfactants. They use ISIS to study simple model systems, and used this fundamental knowledge to inform potential candidate formulations for the liquid snow.
