Lunar apatites contain hundreds to thousands of parts per million of sulfur. This is puzzling because lunar basalts are thought to form in low oxygen fugacity (fO2) conditions where sulfur can only exist in its reduced form (S2–), a substitution not previously observed in natural apatite. We present measurements of the oxidation state of S […]

After decades of relative silence, lab-based spectroscopy has made a comeback in recent years. Modern spectrometers have energy resolution comparable to synchrotron XAS beamlines and have performances demonstrated in dozens of recent publications. Here, I will briefly summarize the various technical approaches before focusing on examples for XAFS and XES in the hard and tender […]

The halogens chlorine and bromine have high electron affinities and exist in seawater mainly as chloride and bromide anions, which have generally been considered unreactive in the environment. Using Cl and Br K-edge XANES spectroscopy, we have measured high concentrations of organo-chlorine and -bromine in naturally degraded particulate organic matter (POM) from oceanic sediment traps. […]

Introduction to ELI-Beamlines – a new user facility in the heart of Europe. Status and prospective of ELI X-ray spectroscopy end-station <span data-sheets-value="{"1":2,"2":"Improved access to state-of-the-art facilities is a key element to groundbreaking advances in science. One such facility is the Extreme Light Infrastructure (ELI); a pan-European project of which one pillar (ELI-Beamlines) is located […]

Tracking the structure of functional nanomaterials (e.g., metal catalysts) remains a challenge due to the paucity of experimental techniques that can provide atomic-level information for metal species in harsh conditions, often required for studying chemical transformations. Here we report on the use of X-ray absorption spectroscopy (XANES and EXAFS) and supervised machine learning (SML) for […]

X-ray excited optical luminescence (XEOL) is a photon-in-photon-out process which monitors the visible luminescence emitted from materials upon X-ray excitation. Unlike using low energy excitation source such as UV, during X-ray excitation, core electrons are excited and the production of luminescence is a much more complicated process. Because of this, X-ray excited luminescence can be […]

K-fluorescence X-ray emission spectroscopy (XES) is receiving a growing interest in all branches of natural sciences to investigate the local spin in 3d transition metal complexes. Unlike the valence-to-core emission lines, the core-to-core transitions in Kβ (3p to 1s) and Kα (2p to 1s) do not probe the valence shell directly and the chemical sensitivity […]

Ion reactions offer a huge playground for tuning the electronic and crystal properties of inorganic solids for energy applications. Our research focuses on resolving a longstanding question in materials electrochemistry regarding redox active solids: how does the mesoscale chemical distribution influence ion reactions at different length scales? Through manipulating the thermodynamics and kinetics of the […]

Single atoms catalysts (SACs) have been heavily investigated in the recent years because of their good catalytic properties (especially activity and selectivity) for many chemical reactions . In addition to that, in SACs, the supported metals are used with extremely high efficiency compared to their nano counterparts. That is very important for noble metals, which […]

The Australian XAFS community started from small beginnings and currently, XAFS is one of the most oversubscribed techniques at the Australian Synchrotron. The community has been fostered by access to facilities; initially the Australian National Beamline Facility (ANBF) at the Photon Factory, to more recently the XAS beamline at the Australian Synchrotron. The ANBF was […]

The solar light-driven splitting of water for hydrogen fuel production is a promising alternative to fossil fuels due to their rapid depletion and concomitant environmental pollution. The design of light-driven devices composed of organic, inorganic or hybrid materials that can mimic natural photosynthetic processes is extremely desirable. An essential component of such systems is the […]