The IT Systems Section of the Computing & Controls Division of ALBA has started up a virtual server to process data for the folding@home international project, which is joining researchers around the world working to better understand the 2019 Coronavirus to accelerate the open science effort to develop new life-saving therapies.
With the support of the European project CALIPSOplus, SMEs companies working with COVID-19 projects are encouraged to apply access to light sources in an easy, rapid and confidential way. Interested companies can send the proposals using the "wayforlight.eu" portal. The current call is open till 29h July 2020.
The Spanish Vacuum Society has awarded Prof. Salvador Ferrer Fábregas for his contributions to the study of the surfaces properties and the development of characterization experimental techniques as well as the creation and operation of the ALBA Synchrotron.
Researchers from the ICMAB-CSIC have discovered a MOF that allows for the separation of butanol from acetone-butanol-ethanol mixtures that are extracted from the fermentation process of biomass feedstock, as part of the standard industrial process to produce biofuels. This new compound, mCB-MOF-1, shows promising results compared to other methodologies or other MOF materials. Data obtained at both ALBA beamlines, XALOC and NCD-SWEET, had a key role in this study, as well as their scientists support and collaboration.
A chiral exchange interaction denominated Dzyaloshinskii-Moriya interaction (DMI) is responsible for exotic chiral and topological magnetic states such as spin spirals and skyrmions. A study lead by researchers at the Department of Materials Science and Engineering at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (US) reveals that in perpendicularly-magnetized iron garnets, rare-earth orbital magnetism gives rise to an intrinsic spin-orbit coupling generating interfacial DMI at mirror symmetry-breaking interfaces. The results have been published in Nature Communications.
