Controlled synthesis of materials with specified atomic structures underpins technological advances yet remains reliant on iterative, trial-and-error approaches. Nanoparticles (NPs), whose atomic arrangement dictates their emergent properties, are particularly challenging to synthesise due to numerous tunable parameters. Here, we introduce an autonomous approach explicitly targeting synthesis of atomic-scale structures. Our method autonomously designs synthesis protocols by matching real time experimental total scattering (TS) and pair distribution function (PDF) data to simulated target patterns, without requiring prior synthesis knowledge. We demonstrate this capability at a synchrotron, successfully synthesising two structurally distinct gold NPs: 5 nm decahedral and 10 nm face-centred cubic structures. Ultimately, specifying a simulated target scattering pattern, thus representing a bespoke atomic structure, and obtaining both the synthesised material and its reproducible synthesis protocol on demand may revolutionise materials design. Thus, ScatterLab provides a generalisable blueprint for autonomous, atomic structure-targeted synthesis across diverse systems and applications.

Machine learning has been used by scientists in the US to reduce unwanted fluctuations in photon beams from a synchrotron light source. The technique does this by stabilizing the synchrotron's electron beam and offers a way around an important barrier to the development of next-generation facilities. The work was done by Simon Leemann and colleagues at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL) in California and could allow emerging analysis techniques that require high beam stability – such as X-ray photon correlation spectroscopy (XPCS) – to be implemented on synchrotons. Synchrotron light sources are extremely useful scientific instruments because they deliver bright, high-quality beams of coherent electromagnetic radiation from infrared wavelengths up to soft X-rays. The light is produced by accelerating electrons in a storage ring using powerful magnets – taking advantage of the fact that an accelerated electron emits electromagnetic radiation.

LONDON – Scientists at Britain's national synchrotron facility have harnessed powerful light beams to virtually unwrap and decipher fragile scrolls dating back some 2,000 years in a process they hope will provide new insights into the ancient world. The two complete scrolls and four fragments -- from the so-called Herculaneum library, the only one surviving from antiquity -- were buried and carbonized by the deadly eruption of Mount Vesuvius in the year 79 and are too fragile to be opened. The items were examined at the Diamond Light Source facility in Oxfordshire, home to Britain's synchrotron, a particle accelerator in which beams travel around a closed-loop path to produce light many times brighter than the sun. "The idea is essentially like a CT scanner where you would take an image of a person, a three-dimensional image of a person and you can slice through it to see the different organs," said Laurent Chapon, physical science director of Diamond Light Source. "We … shine very intense light through (the scroll) and then detect on the other side a number of two-dimensional images. From that we reconstruct a three-dimensional volume of the object … to actually read the text in a nondestructive manner," Chapon said.