It has recently been proposed that insulators with large band gaps and strong spin-orbit coupling can host a new phase of quantum matter called a topological insulator that is characterized by entangled wavefunctions. The proposal has now been realized by an international collaboration led by researchers from Princeton University who studied the electronic structure of insulating alloys of bismuth and antimony by means of angle-resolved photoemission spectroscopy (ARPES) and spin-resolved ARPES. Read more »
Nanoscale Chemical Imaging of a Working Catalyst
Researchers identified the chemical species present for an iron-based Fischer–Tropsch synthesis catalyst and to image their distribution on the nanoscale. When developed further, this new tool may give chemists the ability to design and tailor catalysts for maximum selectivity and efficiency in a wide range of chemical processes. Read more » 
Reaction-Driven Restructuring of Bimetallic Nanoparticle Catalysts
Researchers have used an ambient-pressure x-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (APXPS) apparatus to demonstrate that bimetallic nanoparticle catalysts can undergo profound structural and chemical changes in response to reactive environments at ambient pressures, thereby opening the way for engineering catalysts with enhanced activity and selectivity. Read more »
Extracellular Proteins Promote Zinc Sulfide Aggregation
Researchers from the ALS, Berkeley Lab’s National Center for Electron Microscopy (NCEM), and Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory analyzed biofilm samples rich in zinc sulfide and dominated by sulfate-reducing bacteria, which were collected from lead–zinc mine waters.
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Particles from Comet 81P/Wild 2 Viewed by ALS Microscopes
NASA’s $200-million, seven-year-long Stardust mission returned to Earth thousands of tiny particles snagged from the coma of comet 81P/Wild 2. Four ALS beamlines and the researchers using them were among the hundreds of scientists and dozens of experimental techniques in facilities around the world that contributed to the preliminary examination of the first samples.
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First Detailed Look at RNA Dicer
Scientists have gotten their first detailed look at the molecular structure of an enzyme that Nature has been using for eons to help silence unwanted genetic messages: Dicer, an enzyme that plays a critical role in a process known as RNA interference.
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