We discovered that the thermoelectric effect of a spintronics thin film Pt/Y₃Fe₅O₁₂ is resistant to heavy ion beam irradiations. This is promising characteristics for the energy harvesting from radioactive wastes. The deterioration of characteristics at high irradiation doses has been suggested due to the alteration of Y₃Fe₅O₁₂ at the interface using synchrotron radiation hard X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy. This work Is a joint research with JAEA Advanced Science Research Center, National Institutes for Quantum and Radiological Science and Technology, Tohoku University, University of Tokyo, and NEC Corporation.

The Cs adsorption structure in biotite with different particle sizes was clarified by XAFS. As a result, as the particle size becomes smaller.
It was found that the Debye-Waller factor increased and the variation in the Cs adsorption structure increased.

Due to its large specific surface area, metal fine particle is used in many practical catalysts such as automobile catalysts for exhaust gas purification. Observing the structure of catalyst itself under in situ conditions where catalyst is actually working is a great help in the development of new catalysts. The approach of this research is to explore the small structural changes of the catalyst during the reaction by using the continuous measurement of XAFS. XAFS is a unique method that can obtain structural information specialized for a specific element in a substance. Figure 3 shows an example of in situ continuous XAFS measurements on alumina-supported palladium metal particles. Even in the case of continuous measurement rate of 2 Hz, the relative accuracy of the closest atom-to-atom distance has reached 100 fm, indicating that small structural changes have been detected. By realizing a method with such high relative accuracy, we would like to discover the small structural changes of the catalyst during the reaction, understand the reaction mechanism more deeply, and provide feedback to the development of new catalysts.

Functional materials such as ferroelectrics, piezoelectrics, magnetostrictive materials, and shape memory alloys have a domain-mediated physical characteristic expression mechanism. In such a group of substances, the structure inside the domain cannot be found by the conventional average structural analysis assuming periodicity. Therefore, there is PDF analysis as a method to obtain a nanoscale-order structure that seamlessly connects the microstructure area of the unit cell to the domain structure. Figure 4 shows the Bi/Na network structure obtained from the nanoscale structural analysis of Bi_0.5Na_0.5TiO₃, which is used as a lead-free ferroelectric. Such nanoscale range structures are being applied not only to functional materials, but also to nuclear materials, and are currently using simulated materials to develop ADS-converted MA fuels that reduce the half-life of long-lived nuclides.

Batteries are based on electrochemical reactions and electrochemical reactions are one of the chemical reactions, which occur at the electrode/electrolyte interfaces. To improve the performance of the electrochemical devices, e. g., batteries, the mechanism of the electrochemical reaction must be well investigated on the nanoscale. We’ve developed techniques for the analysis of electrode/electrolyte structures using quantum beams. The figure shows the structure of the ionic liquid/Si(100) electrode interface, which was investigated using neutron reflectivity. The ionic liquid is a salt, which is in a liquid state at room temperature. The results suggest that the cation and anion layers are stacked on the electrode surface in order. Further, in both anion and cation layers, molecules are arranged in parallel with the electrode surface.

It was known that the (X-ray inelastic scattering) experimental data of the lattice vibration (phonon) in iron-based superconducting materials differs from the (first principle) calculation. Recently we succeeded to show the good agreement between the two by including the effect of magnetism (spin polarization) in the calculation. This work Is a joint research with Osaka University, RIKEN, and J-PARC Center.

Fundamental aspects of surfaces and interfaces of attractive functional materials for industrial applications, such as nano-device fabrications, catalytic reactions related to the environment and energy, and corrosion phenomena are the main research target. Adsorption and desorption of radioactive Cs on clay mineral surfaces are also important research topics. In order to obtain atomic and molecular level information of material surfaces, photoelectron spectroscopy using soft X-ray synchrotron radiation is mainly used. Real-time observation of surface reactions under gas-ambient conditions and supersonic molecular beam irradiations is possible. Physical chemistry of solid surfaces is studied by employing the advantages of the SPring-8 soft X-ray, such as brightness, energy resolution and directional.

We proposed a double exposure method (DEM) which combines a two-dimensional detector and high-energy synchrotron radiation, as an X-ray stress measurement method for materials with coarse grains. The principle of DEM is to determine the diffraction angle and the position of diffraction grains from the relationship between the straight line of the X-ray optical axis and the direct line obtained by measuring the diffraction spot beam at two points. In this research, we created a system that calculates diffraction angles and diffraction positions using DEM, and succeeded in efficiently analyzing diffraction spots. 【Paper】「Stress measurement of coarse grains using double exposure method」K. Szuki, A. Shiro and T. Shobu, JSMS (in Japanese), Vol. 68, No. 4, pp. 312-317（2019）.

In this study, using high-energy X-rays at SPring-8, we clarified how the strain between grains with anisotropy due to crystal orientation is balanced. The elucidation of the principle of microscopic stress behavior due to crystal elastic anisotropy was highly evaluated academically.【Paper】「Intergranular Strains of Plastically Deformed Austenitic Stainless Steel」Kenji SUZUKI and Takahisa Shobu, EJAM, Vol.10 No.4, p.9-17 (2019)

In platinum group metal refining to recover important metals from urban mines、effective recovery of Rh(III) from mixtures containing Pd(II) and Pt(IV) is one of the most challenging tasks. In this study, we found that Rh(III) can be effectively separated by adding 3,3'-diaminobenzidine (DAB) to 7M and 10M HCl solutions.【Paper】「Unique anion-exchange properties of 3,3’-diaminobenzidine resulting in high selectivity for rhodium(III) over palladium(II) and platinum(IV) in a concentrated hydrochloric acid solution」, Tomoya Suzuki, Takeshi Ogata, Mikiya Tanaka, Tohru Kobayashi, Hideaki Shiwaku, Tsuyoshi Yaita, and Hirokazu Narita, Analytical Sciences, 35(12), 1353 (2019)