Dr. Anna Mandziak and Dr. Karolina Kosowska have become winners of the sixth edition of the MINIATURA competition, funded by the National Science Center. The first of them will use the grant for preliminary research in the area of optimization of the growth process of gadolinium-doped magnetite thin films. The second researcher will take a month-long internship and further develop the four-polarization method using O-PTIR microscopy.

On November 3rd, we met this year's winners of the Foundation for Polish Science (FNP) Prize. Among others, the winner of this most prestigious scientific award in Poland is Prof. Marcin Nowotny. A long-time collaborator of the SOLARIS Centre, he co-authored the concept of establishing a cryo-electron microscopy facility at SOLARIS.

A representation of SOLARIS employees joined this years’ LEAPS plenary meeting, which took place at Villigen, Switzerland. The major objective of the meeting was the proposed strategy for accelerator-based photon science (ESAP). Against the backdrop of the current energy crisis, a vision for modern accelerator-based light sources was set out, that address current and future societal and scientific challenges.

Energy savings and a solution to a beam orbit correction problem are the results of a recent optimization carried out as part of a project initiated by Dr. Roman Panaś of the Accelerators Department. The correction problems stemmed from suboptimal alignment of the electron beam position "centers" (so-called offsets). It turned out that the correction magnets were undergoing periodic saturation, which made it impossible to maintain the correct orbit. Optimization of the beam orbit was essential, as it indirectly affects the quality and power of synchrotron light. It took about 2 months to develop and implement the new algorithms.

On October 13, 2022, the third in a series of meetings dedicated to users from the world of industry took place at the SOLARIS Centre. This time the meeting was co-organized with Deloitte, an international network of commercial companies providing advisory and auditing services.