A research team from the Institute des Sciences Moléculaires d’Orsay (ISMO) of the Paris-Saclay University has acquired the first experimental results in the electronic structure of covellite, a mineral superconductor. The measurements were performed at the URANOS beamline of the SOLARIS synchrotron and have been published in Physical Review B under the title: “Experimental electronic structure of the mineral superconductor covellite CuS”. The results demonstrate the experimental fingerprints of a subtle structural transition, on the electronic structure of covellite.

The study was conducted by an interdisciplinary team of researchers from the SOLARIS National Synchrotron Radiation Centre, AGH University of Krakow, the Institute of Physics of the Jagiellonian University, and an industrial partner, Inglot Sp. z o.o. The aim of this work was to develop a rapid and sensitive method for the determination of trace amounts of lead in raw materials with potential cosmetic applications. The feasibility of using energy-dispersive X-ray fluorescence excited by monochromatic synchrotron radiation (SR-XRF) for the quantitative analysis of samples with complex and unknown matrices was evaluated. The use of synchrotron radiation enabled the achievement of very low detection limits with minimal sample preparation and short measurement times, and the results were validated using the ICP-OES method.

A group of researchers from the Leibniz Institute for Catalysis in Rostock, Germany, is investigating the relationship between catalyst structure and the reaction mechanism in the synthesis of hydrocarbons from CO₂. In this study published in ACS Catalysis, a simple catalyst preparation method combined with sophisticated material characterizations, in part performed at SOLARIS, enabled gaining new mechanistic insights.

Research conducted by a team of scientists from the Akademia Górniczo-Hutnicza, the Universitat Rovira i Virgili (Spain), and NCPS SOLARIS focused on the architecture of thin TiO₂/CuO bilayers fabricated by sequential reactive magnetron sputtering. Synchrotron measurements carried out at the Centrum SOLARIS enabled an analysis of the oxidation state of copper and the electronic structure of the investigated systems in the context of their application in green hydrogen production.

The team from the Laboratory of Quantum Matter Research at the University of Zurich reports the discovery of a pristine, half-filled cuprate, Tl₂Ba₅Cu₄O_x, and presents a detailed study of its magnetic properties. Published in Communications Materials, the work determines the electronic band structure and magnon dispersion of this new system. By modelling the dispersion within a Hubbard–Heisenberg framework, the effective interaction strengths are extracted and compared with those of other cuprates, establishing a universal relation between electron–electron interactions and the magnon zone-boundary dispersion.