News Gallery
Beamtime @ SOLEIL - Pléiades - February 2024
This February we had another beamtime at the beamline Pléiades located in the synchrotron SOLEIL (Paris). We investigated Photoelectron Angular Distributions (PADs) from liquid micojets and flatjets.
Here we can see the circular facade of the laboratory, as it is typical for synchrotron facilities, and its nice surroundings.
Christophe, the famous beamline scientist at the beamline Pléiades, assists Dominik in restarting the experiment after venting the machine.
Left: A close-up view of the setup, where the flajet is generated by a glass microchip nozzle and is directed at a catcher. Below the flatjet we see the skimmer through which the photoelectrons enter the spectrometer. Right: Dominik, Bruno and Bernd try to make sense out of the intriguing data.
Left: Christian carefully adjusts the angle between the flatjet and the light incoming from the beamline. Right: The control panels and acquisition computers at the hutch of the Pléiades beamline during an experiment.
Bernd and Stephan making sure to enjoy the short moments of good weather having lunch outside.
A picture at the end of the beamtime with all the people who participated. From left to right:
Bernd, Christian, Christophe (in a broomstick), Bruno, Marine, Dominik and Stephan, who come from Japan for a visit and for the experiment!
Bernd, Christian, Christophe (in a broomstick), Bruno, Marine, Dominik and Stephan, who come from Japan for a visit and for the experiment!
Christmas/New year's party - Jan 2024
We had to postpone the Christmas party in our institute due to a wave of Covid infections. What took place instead was a Christmas + New year's party that began with a retrospective and announcements for 2024 from our director, Gerard Meijer.
The moment all the members from the Molecular Physics department gathered to hear the announcements made by Gerard Meijer can be seen on the left. On the right, a close-up photo of him while one of our latest papers is displayed!
Lab experiments - January 2024
Our friend and collaborator Christian Schewe spent almost two weeks performing experiments in our machine at the FHI, using the He lamp. He likes to study exotic systems such as liquid metal (GaIn and GaInSn alloys) and solutions which solvents aren’t water: acetonitrile, THF and others.
Christian brought his PEEK HPLC pump to avoid exposing our stainless steel pumps to aggressive solutions, or to solvents that don’t go well on water. Here we can see how the inlet filter was after running a ferrocenium tetrafluoroborate solution in acetonitrile.
And here we can see what was collected in our cryogenic catcher and trap after Christian performed some liquid jet photoelectron spectroscopy of ferrocene and ferrocenium solutions in acetonitrile. It’s hard to say if it’s pretty, gross or even scary to imagine having this inside our vacuum chamber!