Diamond Annual Review 2025-26

As a result, the material was able to keep its superconducting properties even in magnetic fields much stronger than what would normally destroy them. This is unusual behaviour that had previously only been seen in materials made from heavy elements, whereas gallium is relatively light. The discovery shows that it is possible to design new types of superconductors using lightweight materials by carefully engineering how they are layered. It opens the door to creating new, high-performance superconductors from lighter, more common elements, which could be important for future electronics and quantum technologies. DOI: 10.1038/s41563-026-02573-y Mapping nanoscale buckling in an ultra-thin magnetic semiconductor Ultra-thin magnetic materials could be used to make new kinds of tiny electronic devices, such as better memory and spin-based electronics. A study focussed on one such material, called chromium germanium telluride, which is a magnetic semiconductor made of stacked atomic layers. Researchers used I05 to measure the electronic band structure of the semiconductor. They also used an They offer a variety of techniques to examine the atomic scale structure, chemical nature and electronic state at buried interfaces or the surfaces of material Preserving superconductivity in strong magnetic fields Superconductors are materials that let electricity flow with no energy loss, making them important for future high-performance electronics. The challenge is that most superconductors stop working when exposed to strong magnetic fields because those fields break apart the electron pairs that enable superconductivity. Researchers used the I09 beamline to investigate a way to overcome that limitation by creating a very thin layered structure. They placed a sheet of gallium only three atoms thick between two other materials; graphene on top and silicon carbide underneath. This setup created special quantum effects at the boundaries between the layers. The Structures and Surfaces Group includes four beamlines, each consisting of multiple end-stations that are optimised for a specific type of experiment: I05 (Angle- Resolved Photoelectron Spectroscopy –ARPES), I07 (Surface and Interface X-ray Diffraction), B07 (Versatile Soft X-ray Scattering – VERSOX) and I09 (Surface and Interface Structural Analysis – SISA). Structures and Surfaces Group ePSIC advanced microscope to see individual atoms, successfully imaging to a single atomic layer for the first time. They created a new method that can measure very small bends and tilts in these ultra-thin crystals using only high-resolution images. It was seen that a single layer is surprisingly wavy and, in some places, the layer tilts by as much as 20 degrees over just a few nanometres. This strong bending may happen because defects in the crystal structure are more common when the material is only one layer thick. The researchers linked these structural features to how the material’s electrons behave, using a technique that measures electronic energy levels. Overall, the study provides new atomic-level understanding of this material and introduces a useful new way to map the shape of atom-thin crystals, which could help future research and device development using layered materials. DOI: 10.1002/adfm.202526564 23 24 Annual review 2025/26 Structures and Surfaces Group