KIT

Karlsruhe, October 30, 2024 – A team of technology experts at the KNMFi user facility has published a practice paper (DOI: 10.5334/dsj-2024-050) detailing their approach to implementing the web-based application Kadi4Mat (KadiWeb) as an electronic laboratory notebook (ELN). The ELN is combined with an integrated MaTeLiS instrument database to support the principles of Findable - Accessible - Interoperable - Reusable (FAIR) research data.

Facing challenges in transmission electron microscopy (TEM), focused ion beam (FIB), atom probe tomography (APT), and scanning electron microscopy (SEM), the team developed a strategy to document the complex processes in the KNMFi user facility. The experimental steps in TEM, APT, and FIB/SEM, as well as traditional sample preparation steps in a metallographic lab, were analyzed and translated into key-value pairs to create the respective templates. This is easily achievable without programming knowledge.

The MaTeLiS instrument database in Kadi4Mat enables users to find instruments at KIT and link them to experiments. In a practical example, the team demonstrated how the developed Kadi4Mat templates can be used to document experimental procedures in the TEM, APT, and FIB environments and how the MaTeLiS instrument database is integrated into Kadi4Mat. Experimental data can easily be added to the records, enabling FAIR data publication. The strategy can be extended to other KNMFi technologies.

Amadeus Bramsiepe, KIT

May 5, 2024

Using the new NAPXAS instrument at the Karlsruhe Research Accelerator (KARA), researchers at the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT) and the University of Münster aim to observe at the molecular level exactly how batteries charge and discharge. By making liquids accessible for synchrotron research with soft X-rays, NAPXAS provides unique insights into the processes at work in batteries.

NAPXAS (Near Ambient Pressure X-ray Absorption Spectroscopy) has been implemented at IQMT’s soft X-ray analytics facility WERA at the Karlsruhe Research Accelerator’s (KARA’s) KIT Light Source. “With NAPXAS, we can perform spectroscopic investigations of energy conversion and aging processes in batteries under more or less standard wet chemistry conditions, and we can do that live while the batteries are in use,” says Nagel, who is heading KIT’s work on the project.

After a test phase, plans call for researchers worldwide to have access to NAPXAS and WERA through the Karlsruhe Nano Micro Facility, a high-tech platform for research on functional materials in the micro- and nanometer range.

KIT

A Nature Materials review by a collaboration of INT scientists on the recent research on high-entropy materials highlights their emerging potential in energy and electronic applications, based mainly on the intrinsic features of the "cocktail effect" and lattice distortions of these materials. The emphasis lies on ionic and covalent ceramic materials. DOI: 10.1038/s41578-024-00654-5

Dennis Rieger, KIT

Quantum computers are considered to be the computers of the future. Quantum bits (qubits), the smallest computational unit of quantum computers, are the be-all and end-all. Because they have not only two states, but also states in between, qubits process more information in less time. However, maintaining such a state for a longer time is difficult and depends in particular on material properties. A KIT research team now generated qubits that are 100 times more sensitive to material defects – a crucial step toward eliminating them. Electron Beam Lithography (EBL), a KNMFi technology, was the key technology to fabricate 20 nm small nanojunctions. The team published the results in the journal Nature Materials (DOI: 10.1038/s41563-022-01417-9).