EPJ Plus Highlight - Introducing the European strategy for accelerator-based photon science (ESAPS 2022)

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Published on 25 September 2023

Through new plans detailed in ESAPS 2022, the LEAPS consortium aims to strengthen Europe as a global leader in accelerator-based photon science.

The League of European Accelerator-based Photon Sources (LEAPS) is made up of 19 large-scale synchrotron (SR) and Free-electron Laser (FEL) facilities, situated across 10 European countries. This contribution to the EPJ Plus Focus Point “Accelerator-based Photon Science Strategy, Prospects and Roadmap in Europe: a Forward View to 2030” introduces the European Strategy for Accelerator-based Photon Science (ESAPS 2022): a pan-European plan formulated by LEAPS aimed at addressing the future challenges and needs in science and innovation, which strengthens Europe as a global leader in many areas of research and technology. Through the plans set out in ESAPS 2022, LEAPS could soon provide valuable new resources for more than 35,000 researchers using its facilities today, spanning fields as wide-ranging as materials science, drug design, biochemistry, quantum technology, geology, and planetary science.

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EPJ A Highlight - An overview of the management structure of the AGATA collaboration

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Published on 25 September 2023

The AGATA project could eventually lead to a deeper understanding of the strong nuclear force. This paper details the project’s highly sophisticated management structure, which will be essential to achieving this goal.

The Advanced Gamma Tracking Array (AGATA) is a European gamma-ray spectrometer that is already achieving unparalleled levels of sensitivity in nuclear gamma-ray spectroscopy. Ensuring success in the project’s construction and operation has involved developing a highly sophisticated structure of management and organisation. This contribution to the EPJ A topical collection “AGATA: Advancements in Science and Technology” describes the roles and responsibilities of each of AGATA’s management committees, and details the project’s scientific organisation. As AGATA promises to make major breakthroughs in our understanding of the strong nuclear force and nuclear structure in the coming decades, the paper offers a new degree of transparency for the many research groups which stand to benefit from its future discoveries.

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EPJ B Highlight - Testing particle scattering and reflection in graphene

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Published on 25 September 2023

Testing the quantum effects of Andreev reflection in the wonder material could have positive implications for quantum technology

Humanity stands on the verge of two major revolutions: the boom in 2-dimensional supermaterials like graphene with incredible properties and the introduction of quantum computers with processing power that vastly outstrips standard computers.

Understanding materials like graphene, made of single sheets of atoms, means better investigations of the properties they display at an atomic level. This includes how electrons behave around superconductors — materials that, when cooled to temperatures near absolute zero, can conduct electricity without energy loss.

When a superconductor is sandwiched between metal materials, a type of scattering called crossed Andreev reflection may appear, and in an s-wave superconductor junction, the Andreev reflection usually induces correlated opposite spin in electrons. This can be used to induce entanglement, a quantum phenomenon that is critical for quantum computers.

In a new paper in EPJ B, author Rui Shen, from the National Laboratory of Solid State Microstructures and School of Physics at Nanjing University, China, and his co-authors theoretically assess nonlocal transport and crossed Andreev reflection in a ferromagnetic s-wave superconductor junction composed of the gapped graphene lattices.

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