Large research facilities await Swedish experiments

Imagine seeing exactly what happens in different materials when you heat them up to 1000 degrees. So not that you see what happened to the material afterwards when it has cooled, but how the atoms react when they are actually at extreme temperatures.

Susanne Norgren is an adjunct professor at the department of industrial production at Lund University and at the same time group expert in material design at Sandvik. She describes how in her work she uses large synchrotron light and neutron facilities to gain better knowledge of the materials the group works with.

- Imagine being able to see through a cheek egg what's inside without removing the foil. These are the possibilities that synchrotron light and neutron sources give us, to see inside the materials. With the increased knowledge, materials technology throughout the world can be lifted, says Susanne Norgren.

What is at issue are the research infrastructures, state-of-the-art experimental facilities where advanced research projects are conducted, and in which Europe has invested significant sums in recent years. The research facilities must provide researchers from the academic world and industry with instruments and technical resources and contribute to innovations and solutions to various challenges facing society. Sweden, and Vinnova, via the Swedish Research Council, participates in and finances a number of research infrastructures in both Sweden and other countries.

European Spallation Source (ESS) in Lund

Several of the facilities, such as MAX IV in Lund, specifically handle synchrotron light, an energy-rich type of X-ray radiation that is used to determine the properties of various substances. If it is cemented metal, something that Sandvik works with in both rock drilling and cutting, neutrons are often needed instead in order to be able to measure what happens down to the atomic level when the materials are subjected to various experiments, temperatures and loads. Neutron sources are located at a few facilities all over the world, but when the new ESS facility, European Spallation Source, also in Lund, is put into operation in earnest in 2028, it means that the world's strongest neutron source will be on Swedish soil.

- Personally, I think it will be of great importance for Swedish industry to have increased proximity to such facilities, because we have a lot of industry that manufactures components in metals, says Susanne Norgren.

But it is also important to understand that it is about basic research carried out at the facilities and not regular product development, she points out. The results of basic research, on the other hand, are a prerequisite for developing and producing new products.

- What we are looking for is understanding. After that, companies with knowledge of what the understanding can be used for can think about how they can create something better, says Susanne Norgren.

“A common resource”

Gustaf Mårtensson, an expert in complex liquids at the industrial company Mycronic and with a research connection to KTH, explains himself with the help of a ketchup bottle. If you press hard and quickly on both sides of the bottle, you shoot out a small amount of ketchup at high speed. So what does this have to do with Mycronic, which manufactures advanced production equipment for the electronics industry?

- Electronics are becoming increasingly miniaturized. Our tools place components and conductive materials on circuit boards, and you need more and more control over where you place your tiny piles of metal. For that, we have developed special types of printers that eject the materials, says Gustaf Mårtensson.

But what exactly happens when the printer spits out Mycronic's special liquid with the consistency of toothpaste – or possibly ketchup – filled with metal spheres the size of red blood cells in hair-thin piles?

To understand that, you need both really good X-ray light and a really good camera.

I Grenoble in France is home to the research facility ESRF (European Synchrotron Radiation Facility), Europe's largest synchrotron light facility and which has its strength in the field of hard X-rays. By high-speed filming the liquid in the actual ejection process behind layers of steel and aluminum with synchrotron X-rays and a camera capable of taking 2.1 million images per second, Gustaf and his colleagues were able to test their theories and follow the movement of the liquid and how the metal spheres behaved during it extremely fast course of events.

- This is such advanced technology that not even the largest companies can build up. It struck me when I was there that it is quite amazing that this is a common resource that you can invite yourself to and that it is absolutely crucial if you want to be part of pushing the limits of technology, he says.

Gustaf Mårtensson and his colleagues got exactly the data they wanted. The hope now is that with the new knowledge, the company will eventually be able to refine the printer design and in turn provide increased process control to build smaller circuit boards with lower energy consumption. A successful experiment in other words, but Gustaf Mårtensson points out that, despite the advantages, it is not entirely obvious that companies will turn to research infrastructures to increase their knowledge.

- Often you are busy with your own project and it also takes a certain organization in the companies internally to dare to look further ahead. Thanks to my role models and researcher contacts internally and at KTH and the opportunity to seek support from Vinnova, it became easier. Next time, it will be easier to contact the ESRF yourself, he says and continues:

- The most important thing we can do now is to present our results and publish the work and tell others that these research infrastructures exist, that they are not crazy expensive, are easy to collaborate with and above all - what we get out of it for our development work.

At the link below, you can read more about how Vinnova works to strengthen the conditions for increased and broadened use of advanced research and innovation structure, as well as a compilation of previously funded project.

Competence building and use - MAX IV and ESS

Short routes for companies

Within the SPIRIT project, Pia Kinhult is in the process of preparing the final report of the mission that ran for a year. In short, it has, among other things, been about finding ways for industrial actors to get to the large research facilities, with a focus on MAX IV and the new ESS.

- Sweden has found itself in a completely new, very interesting global position in that we are the host country for research infrastructures, such as MAX IV, Scilifelab and ESS. In life science, we have taken giant steps, now it is important that everyone else catches up and understands what potential there is, says Pia Kinhult, who is project manager for SPIRIT, but otherwise has the role of Head of Host States Relations at ESS.

During the course of the project, a number of major challenges have been identified, both regarding the industries and the companies' environment in which they work and operate, as well as how they, in turn, should take the opportunity to use the large research facilities as part of finding solutions to their own and society's challenges.

What both Pia Kinhult, Susanne Norgren and Gustaf Mårtensson highlight as a key issue for the industrial the actors to find for the facilities, is the importance of collaboration between industry and academia. To take a theory and an experiment further to a research infrastructure facility of the type MAX IV and ESS are, collaboration between researchers and companies is required.

- It is not appropriate to contact just anyone, but it needs to be someone who understands the materials you are working with, states Susanne Norgren.

The vast majority project also go through the entry-level environments and laboratories found at our universities to find out if the theories and materials need to be tested at the larger facilities. Sometimes the lab results are sufficient even then. Increasing accessibility to these entry-level environments in different ways is one of SPIRIT's proposals.

- We need to shorten the paths between the actors and provide a different type of support to the functions that today have collaborative tasks with industry within academia, preferably in order to be able to create long-term relationships and intelligent partnerships, says Pia Kinhult.

Both for Susanne Norgren and Gustaf Mårtensson, it has been easier in these cases to have their feet in both the academic world and the business world. Within the Nordic countries, otherwise, the open doors between the different worlds, which are more common in, for example, the Anglo-Saxon countries, are often missing. Susanne emphasizes the importance of sensitivity and openness between the various the actors.

- Often the person who comes from industry understands the material and the application better, while academia is the one who knows the measurement technology. But both are needed for the experiment to be successful, says Susanne Norgren.