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Finding the lowest energy configuration of N unit charges on a sphere, known as Thomson's problem, is a long-standing query which has only been studied via numerical simulations. We present its physical realization using multiply charged He nanodroplets. The charge positions are determined by x-ray coherent diffractive imaging with Xe as a contrast agent. In neutral droplets, filaments resulting from Xe atoms condensing on quantum vortices are observed. Unique to charged droplets, however, Xe clusters that condense on charges are distributed on the surface in lattice-like structures, introducing He droplets as experimental model systems for the study of Thomson's problem., Physical Review Research, 4 (2), ISSN:2643-1564

Spin injection from epitaxial iron into InGaAs/InAs quantum wells is observed using an all-electric nonlocal setup. From the choice of material, a significant spin-orbit interaction (SOI) is expected. The contact separation of the spin-valve devices is in the order of the mean free path so that the transport is at the transition between diffusive and ballistic. With an established purely diffusive model a spin-injection efficiency of $77%$ is determined from the data. This value is very large compared to previous observations on diffusive spin-valve devices on similar material systems. Motivated by similar results on ballistic spin-valve devices in a material system with small spin-orbit coupling, a recent model was suggested in which a ballistic spin-dephasing length was pointed out to be the crucial length scale. With this model and an experimentally determined spin-orbit coupling parameter of $\ensuremath{\alpha}=4\ifmmode\times\else\texttimes\fi{}{10}^{\ensuremath{-}12}$ eV m, very high spin-injection efficiencies are still determined in our quantum wells. We suggest that the spin-dephasing length to be used in the model must be larger due to the crystallographic anisotropy of the spin-orbit coupling, i.e., in our setup the SOI stabilizes the spin in the crystal direction of the spin-polarized current.

X-ray free-electron lasers deliver intense femtosecond pulses that promise to yield high resolution diffraction data of nanocrystals before the destruction of the sample by radiation damage. Diffraction intensities of lysozyme nanocrystals collected at the Linac Coherent Light Source using 2 keV photons were used for structure determination by molecular replacement and analyzed for radiation damage as a function of pulse length and fluence. Signatures of radiation damage are observed for pulses as short as 70 fs. Parametric scaling used in conventional crystallography does not account for the observed effects.

Subfemtosecond bursts of extreme ultraviolet radiation, facilitated by a process known as high-order harmonic generation, are a key ingredient for attosecond metrology, providing a tool to precisely initiate and probe ultrafast dynamics in the microcosms of atoms, molecules, and solids. These ultrashort pulses are always, and as a by-product of the way they are generated, accompanied by laser-induced recollisions of electrons with their parent ions. By using a few-cycle infrared (${\ensuremath{\lambda}}_{0}=2.1\text{ }\text{ }\ensuremath{\mu}\mathrm{m}$) driving laser, we were able to directly excite high-energy ($\ensuremath{\sim}870\text{ }\text{ }\mathrm{eV}$) inner-shell electrons through laser-induced electron recollision, opening the door to time-resolved studies of core-level and concomitant multielectron dynamics.