7

NEWS

December 2025 ESRFnews

User Meeting coming up

The ESRF is preparing to host its 36th

annual User Meeting on 2–4 February

next year, online and on the EPN

Campus in Grenoble. The three-day

programme couples hands-on tutorials

with a plenary day and a slate of user-

dedicated microsymposia.

The first day will be devoted to

tutorials. On the second day there

will be the plenary session, directors’

reports, a poster session, a commercial

exhibition and the presentation of

the annual Young Scientist Award.

The third and final day will offer four

microsymposia: magnetism and

quantum materials; spatial/temporal

resolution via coherence; synchrotron-

driven neuroscience; and collaborative

battery science. The confirmed

keynote speakers are Jozef Keckes

of the University of Leoben in Austria,

Laurent Chapon of Argonne National

Laboratory in the US, Peter Imrich of

the KAI industrial research centre in

Austria and Henrik Birkedal of Aarhus

University in Denmark.

Microsymposia abstracts will be

accepted until 30 November. General

and poster registration extends until

12 January.

S C I E N C E 3 8 9 6 7 6 0

DFXM reveals deformation twins

in lightweight magnesium alloys

Dark-field X-ray microscopy at

the ESRF has captured, in 3D,

how deformation “twins” nucleate

and evolve inside a single magnesium

grain. The results help to show

how deformation occurs in

lightweight alloys.

Magnesium alloys are appealing

because magnesium is about 30%

lighter than aluminium, promising

lower fuel use and energy demand

in vehicles. Unfortunately, its

hexagonal crystal structure deforms

less smoothly than the cubic lattices

of aluminium or iron. Under load it

forms tiny mirrored domains, known

as deformation twins, inside grains.

Twins help accommodate strain but

can also seed failure.

To watch twinning, Ashley Bucsek

at the University of Michigan in

the US and colleagues preselected a

grain by laboratory X-ray diffraction

contrast then tracked it over time at

the ESRFs ID06HXM beamline

The ESRF is the only facility

with a dedicated mature beamline

exclusively focused on darkfield

Xray microscopy DFXM says

Bucsek More recently my team and

I have been leveraging the exciting

advancements on ID03 to investigate

how deformation twinning in one

grain can trigger deformation in its

neighbouring grains

The team found that deformation

twins tend to nucleate where

three grains meet, and then grow

sideways and irregularly, forming

lopsided ellipsoids. Crucially, these

twin volumes become hotspots for

dislocations and can ignite cracks

(Science 389 6760). “We were surprised

by these results, because according to

conventional theory, the nucleation of

twins should be governed by so-called

Schmid factors,” says the ID03

scientist in charge, Carsten Detlefs.

“We didn’t know how important the

grain boundaries would be.” The team

are now planning to run time-resolved

studies across multiple grains under

load, to link microstructure evolution

to alloy performance.

• This was among the last

experiments on the original

DFXM set-up at ID06-HXM. The

microscope has since moved to the

upgraded ID03 beamline, which has

faster detectors better optics and a

new goniometer to better exploit the

high brilliance of the EBS source

In a separate study ESRF scientists

have unveiled pinkbeam DFXM

on ID03 which uses a broader

Xray spectrum to boost flux while

preserving roughly 100 nm spatial

resolution The method delivers up

to a 27fold increase in diffracted

intensity enabling fast three or

fourdimensional mapping of weakly

diffracting crystals and deformed

grains Commun Mater 6 198

Top (A–C): The

parent magnesium

grain (green)

containing three

deformation twins

(red, blue, yellow)

forming under

load, as recorded

by DFXM at

ID06-HXM. The

twins are hotspots

for the formation of

cracks in the alloys.

Bottom (D–F):

Triple-junction lines

(black) show where

each twin’s junction

coincides with a

parent triple

junction.

The EPN campus was host to the first

“Industry Meets ESRF” event in June, in

which industrial and scientific partners

gathered to discuss opportunities

presented by synchrotron X-rays

for innovation. The event aimed to

strengthen collaboration between

companies and ESRF experts, and to

demonstrate how beamline capabilities

translate into problem-solving for

manufacturing, energy, health and

advanced materials.

After an opening session covering

the ESRF’s offering and previous

successes, participants were given

a tour of beamlines including BM05,

ID01 ID31 ID231 and BM18 as well

as particular highthroughput setups

The second day saw talks from industry

users mixed with exhibits by Novitom

TecEurolab Fraunhofer EZRT Rubis

CT Momentum Transfer ReactivIP

and LynXes In addition there was a

networking session a spotlight on

European collaborations a roundtable

and a future horizons discussion

which explored the codevelopment

of services and projects between the

ESRF and industry

Industry gathers to discuss

opportunities