ABSTRACT:
Understanding and controlling structure and function of liquid interfaces is a constant challenge in biology, nanoscience and nanotechnology, with applications ranging from molecular electronics to controlled drug release. X-ray reflectivity and grazing incidence diffraction provide invaluable probes for studying the atomic scale structure at liquid–vapour interfaces. I will show some recent scientific examples including photo-switchable lipid membrane studies and recent user experiments from the LISA liquid diffractometer instrument [1] at P08 [2] at PETRA III, and the new time resolved laser system there [2]. The laser pump - X-ray probe setup allows study of dynamics at the liquid interface. The femtosecond laser combined with the LISA diffractometer allows unique opportunities to investigate photo-induced structural changes at liquid interfaces with pump-probe techniques. First experiments include laser induced effects at salt solution and liquid mercury surfaces with static and measurements on varied timescales showing the proof of concept for investigations at liquid surfaces. [3]
I will also introduce the DAPHNE4NFDI consortium [5] which brings together users representing key scientific application domains with the large-scale research facilities in photon and neutron science in order to advance the state of data management in the community [6]. The main goal of DAPHNE4NFDI is to make data from these experiments "FAIR", thereby making scientific work more efficient and gaining more knowledge from the data [6]. I will focus on our X-ray reflectivity use-case work flow considering electronic laboratory notebooks, persistent sample identifiers, ML-based data analysis (meta)data catalogue.
Acknowledgement
The LISA instrument at P08 is funded by the ErUM-Pro programme (05K16FK1/05K19FK2/ 05K21FK3) of the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF). We acknowledge DESY (Hamburg, Germany), a member of the Helmholtz Association HGF, for the provision of experimental facilities. Parts of this research were carried out at PETRA III and we would like to thank Chen Shen and Florian Bertram for assistance in using P08. This work was supported by the consortium DAPHNE4NFDI in the context of the work of the NFDI e.V. The consortium is funded by the DFG - project number 460248799.
References
[1] B. M. Murphy et al., Journal of synchrotron radiation 21, 45-56 (2024). doi.org/10.1107/S1600577513026192
[2] O. Seeck et al., Journal of synchrotron radiation 19, 30-38 (2012). doi:10.1107/S0909049511047236
[3] J. E. Warias et al., Journal of synchrotron radiation 31, 779-790 (2024). doi.org/10.1107/S1600577524003400
[4] J. E. Warias et al., Scientific reports, 13, 11480 (2023). doi.org/10.1038/s41598-023-38336-x
[5] A. Barty et al., Zenodo, 2023, DAPHNE4NFDI - Consortium Proposal, doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.8040606
[6] Murphy et al., IUCrJ, 12, 8-15,2025. doi.org/10.1107/S2052252524011941