17

HIGH PRESSURE

at the ESRF ’ s ID11 beamline ( Nature 605 274 ) . “ Our

first experiments took place before the EBS upgrade

and we needed about a week to measure one cell , ” says

Dubrovinsky . “ We did a very similar experiment after the

upgrade , and we got even better data in a matter of hours .

The benefit of the EBS was very clear

Similarly high flux tightly focused X rays are found

at ID27 Purposely rebuilt to exploit the EBS for high

pressure science the beamline excels at single crystal

and powder diffraction as well as X ray fluorescence

and imaging and can easily switch between different

integrated sample environments A number of

young grantees exploiting the beamline testifies to

its potential one of them being the ESRF s Anna

Pakhomova who was awarded an ERC Consolidator

Grant last year to study how extreme pressures shape

the organic chemistry and potential habitability of

Jupiter s and Saturn s icy moons The ESRF EBS is

attracting high pressure scientists because it provides

unique capabilities to study tiny samples with complex

chemistry and architectures across a wide range of

pressures and temperatures surpassing previous

capabilities available to the community she says

Another recent grantee using ID27 is Tomasz Poręba

at the University of Bern who is being supported by

4

March 2026 ESRFnews

r Artist ’ s impression of NASA ’ s Cassini probe sailing through jets of water - rich ice erupting from Saturn ’ s moon Enceladus . The jets are driven by extreme

pressures beneath the moon ’ s crust . Laboratory studies at the ESRF aim to understand how such pressures reshape organic chemistry inside icy worlds .

N A S A / J P L - C A L T E C H / S P A C E S C I E N C E I N S T I T U T E

“ The ESRF – EBS has been a game

changer , because it combines

outstanding high - pressure expertise

with unprecedented brightness and

stability