Hitting the ground running at I05

2015 saw the Angle-Resolved Photoemission Spectroscopy (ARPES) beamline, known as I05, publish 22 articles in 13 different journals (including Nature Nanotechnology, Science, and Nature Physics). Here we get a taste of what I05 can do, and with summaries of the big hitters from last year.

Harnessing honeycombs

Novel liquid crystal structures with amazing properties

A new type of liquid crystal that forms fascinating honeycomb structures has been discovered with the aid of two Diamond beamlines, I22 and I16. The work, published in Nature Communications, demonstrated that the liquid crystal can be fine-tuned to produce unique fluid structures that have wide-reaching applications.

Transcriptional triumphs

Identification of a unique controller of bacterial RNA production

Groundbreaking work conducted at two of Diamond’s MX beamlines has revealed the novel mechanisms employed by bacteria to regulate RNA production. For the first time, the structure and function of a bacterial transcription factor, known as sigma-54 (σ⁵⁴), have been revealed by X-ray crystallography in Science.

Unpicking nanoparticle-protein structures

New study enables characterisation of nanomedicine drug-delivery

Nanoparticles hold great promise for many biological applications, most notably in the delivery of therapeutic drugs. As yet there has been no simple method of working out the structure and shape of nanoparticle-protein complexes. A study published in Nanoscale, using the Circular Dichroism beamline (B23) has taken a major step towards solving this problem.