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NEWS

March 2026 ESRFnews

Young scientists f lock to User Meeting

complex strain gradients across

thin films , nanomaterials and

battery systems , including during

operation . Such gradients are

often decisive for performance and

reliability , he explained , yet remain

difficult to access without the spatial

resolution and flexibility of modern

synchrotron techniques . ID13 is “ a

unique environment to understand

fundamental processes in various

types of materials , ” he said .

An industrial collaborator

of Keckes s Peter Imrich at the

KAI Centre for Automotive and

Industrial Electronics in Austria

also appreciated EBS techniques In

his later keynote he showed how he

and his colleagues have used ESRF

data to probe copper layers and wide

bandgap semiconductors such as

silicon carbide and gallium nitride

in microchips under realistic thermal

and electrical loads In certain

microswitches he pointed out a load

cycle can generate several kilowatts

per square millimetre hundreds of

times more than the surface of the

sun . ESRF instrumentation helps

his team to visualise the deformation

and dislocation behaviour resulting

from this heat in three dimensions at

high spatial resolution , which is   vital

for the engineering of more reliable

electronics .

Turning to the life sciences , Henrik

Birkedal of Aarhus University

in Denmark delivered a remote

presentation of his work on bone ,

teeth and other hierarchically

structured tissues including the

tusks of Arctic narwhals or sea

unicorns Male narwhal tusks are

singular perfectly straight and

remarkably spiral in the same left

handed direction in every individual

The microscopic origin of this

structure has long been unclear which

is why Birkedal and his colleagues

have performed highly stable SAXS

and WAXS tensor tomography at

ID15A and ID13 to map the 3D

orientation of mineralised collagen

through a macroscopic chunk of tusk

The ESRF ’ s annual User Meeting

opened on 2 February with its largest

on - site turnout in 25 years . With 450

existing and future users attending

the sessions in person – including a

high proportion of young scientists –

the event was a wide - ranging overview

of how the EBS is reshaping materials

science , biology and industrial

research alike .

The first day was devoted to 12

tutorials , on topics ranging from the

fundamental principles of techniques ,

through to beamline control tools the

optimisation of measurements and

the best methods of data exploitation

In the plenary the next day the

first keynote speaker Jozef Keckes of

the University of Leoben in Austria

reflected on the transformation of

synchrotron instrumentation An

ESRF user since 2002 he described

how EBS driven improvements

in small and wide angle X ray

scattering SAXS and WAXS as

well as nano diffraction and dark

field X ray microscopy can map

“ Our results rely

on the ESRF .

It ’ s that special

combination of

tightly focused

beam and

high energy . ”

E S R F

Clockwise from top - left : Argonne ’ s Stefan Vogt presents the latest from the APS upgrade ; early - career ESRF user Masha Amirrashedi presents a poster ;

industrial collaborator Peter Imrich explores the benefit of EBS instrumentation for microelectronics ; users tour the commercial exhibits .

S T É P H A N I E M A L B E T - M O N A C O S T É P H A N I E M A L B E T - M O N A C O E S R F