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Spintronics usually uses ferromagnetic materials to achieve net spin polarization of an electric current. INAC researchers recently used a Rashba magnetic field to do the opposite. They used the field to recover spin information electrically at the interface between two non-magnetic thin-layer materials, bismuth and silver. This basic mechanism could now be used to produce […] >>

Leti, working under the EU SPADnet project, assembled and characterized a gamma sensor for positron emission tomography (PET). Unlike photomultiplier tubes, the gamma sensor is compatible with the intense magnetic fields of magnetic resonance imaging (MRI). The development could result in combined PET-MRI scans for cancer patients, providing the functional information of a PET scan […] >>

Constrained silicon conducts electricity up to 2.5 times better than unconstrained silicon, earning the material a place in increasing numbers of integrated circuits. However, constrained silicon had never been observed at the nanometric scale in situ. But a team of researchers from INAC, Leti, ESRF, and Grenoble University just changed that! The researchers used X-ray […] >>

The process of synthesizing bimetallic nanoparticles from organometallic precursors no longer requires an organic solvent and stabilizers (which must be treated after processing). A team of researchers at Leti experimented with ionic liquids and obtained stable suspensions that can be applied directly to high-tech substrates. The ionic liquids—salts dissolved at ambient temperature—have some surprising properties. […] >>

The Nanocharacterization Platform (PFNC) has created a state-of-the art microscopy unit combining four surface-microscopy techniques. Samples are shuttled from one piece of equipment to another in a controlled atmosphere or under high vacuum, which means that researchers can conduct various tests—gleaning elementary, chemical, and structural information at scales ranging from the millimeter down to the […] >>