Explore what’s ahead in February with upcoming events and webinars, a SmartLab product spotlight, a featured video on flexible sulfide solid electrolytes, and new WDXRF and EDXRF application notes.
Winter weather has been on the minds of many people in North America over the past week. People living in Canada or the northern states probably don't have much sympathy for Texas with its single-digit (Fahrenheit) temperatures and a smattering of snow and freezing rain, but even the threat of these things was enough for schools and businesses to close. Places farther north experienced legendary amounts of snowfall. Toronto, for example, received a record-setting 60 cm (about two feet) of snow, most of it in one day. It may not be immediately obvious how weather and climate are connected to materials analysis. Forecasters make predictions based on real-time observations of atmospheric conditions and computer models. However, there's more involved than air currents and water. The sky contains a constantly shifting mixture of gases, droplets, ice crystals, and suspended solid particles—materials, with measurable composition, structure, and behavior. Materials analysis techniques show up all over atmospheric science, often without being labeled that way. The size, shape, and chemistry of aerosols—particles suspended in the air like dust, pollution, smoke residue, volcanic ash, pollen, even sea salt—impacts how they scatter and absorb sunlight, which can alter local temperatures and visibility. Scientific techniques like particle sizing, Raman and infrared spectroscopy, X-ray fluorescence, and electron microscopy help identify what these particles are, where they came from, and how they change as they react in the atmosphere. This information feeds directly into air-quality and radiative forcing models. Cloud chemistry includes the study of the crystal structure of ice crystals, impurities in clouds, and surface chemistry, all of which strongly influence whether a cloud will produce rain, snow, or nothing at all. Studying ice-nucleating particles with microscopy, surface analysis, and controlled-environment experiments connects microstructure to real-world precipitation outcomes. Materials analysis adds hard evidence to climate and weather questions: what’s in the air, how it transforms, and how those transformations drive clouds, radiation balance, and precipitation. Better characterization means better models—and better forecasts.
Upcoming Events
Rigaku School for Practical Crystallography | Webinar |Jan 26 - Feb 6, 2026 |Website
Southern Most Hazmat Conference (SMHMC) | Key West, FL | Feb 3 - Feb 5, 2026 |Website
CBRNe Summit Europe | Lyon, France | Feb 3 - Feb 5, 2026 | Website
ICT-2026 | Linz, Austria | Feb 10 - Feb 13, 2026 |Website
Pittcon 2026 | San Antonio, TX | Mar 9 - 11, 2026 |Website
SEMICON Korea 2026 | COEX, South Korea | Feb 11 - Feb 13, 2026 | Website
CECAM | Lausanne, Switzerland | Feb 11 - Feb 13, 2026 |Website
Noble TR/EX | Arlington, VA | Feb 19, 2026 |Website
What is really happening inside your material when you heat it?
This webinar reveals how the DSC identifies materials' physical properties in combination with all kinds of accessories, such as a sample observation camera, an automatic sample changer, and cooling units.
Join us for 30 minutes to learn how to unlock the true story of your materials!
How can you improve accuracy and long-term stability in quantitative XRF analysis?
This webinar explores practical approaches to quantitative X-ray fluorescence (XRF), with a focus on calibration strategies that deliver accurate and consistent results. We will cover empirical and Fundamental Parameter calibrations, methods for identifying and correcting matrix effects, and the role of ratio correction in handling variable materials. The session also addresses sample preparation best practices, selection of certified reference materials, calibration curve validation, and modern XRF software tools that support drift correction and data management.
Automated Multipurpose X‑ray Diffractometer (XRD) With Guidance Software
Powder diffraction, thin film metrology, SAXS, in-plane scattering, operando measurements
Rigaku SmartLab is the newest and most novel high-resolution X-ray diffractometer (XRD) available today. Perhaps its most novel feature is the new SmartLab Studio II software, which provides the user with an intelligent User Guidance expert system functionality that guides the operator through the intricacies of each experiment. It is like having an expert standing by your side.
As discussed in the Rigaku Journal article featured below, XRD data from SmartLab is used to provide at-line feedback to AI agents in autonomous workflows, allowing them to adjust experimental parameters. It allows the system to verify phase purity and confirm that the synthesis successfully matched the AI's target design. XRD is considered a central tool for self-driving laboratories to characterize ordered solids, including functional materials and pharmaceuticals.
A Factorial patent introduces a flexible sulfide solid electrolyte membrane designed specifically for next‑generation all‑solid‑state batteries (ASSBs). A solid electrolyte that is both highly conductive and mechanically flexible removes one of the most persistent obstacles in ASSB engineering and opens the door to roll-to-roll manufacturing, sheet stacking, and pouch-cell formats—the same industrial workflows that power today’s lithium-ion gigafactories.
December 4, 2025: Materials scientists report a straightforward way to synthesize previously hard-to-stabilize high-entropy oxide ceramics by lowering the oxygen available during firing, which keeps iron and manganese in the 2+ oxidation. Using this approach plus machine-learning screening, they identified and produced seven new stable high-entropy oxide ceramic compositions as bulk pellets, with potential applications in areas like energy storage, electronics, and protective coatings.
December 16, 2025: Researchers describe a cement/concrete approach that uses CO₂ uptake as part of curing, aiming to turn a major emissions source into a partial carbon sink. The work focuses on how reaction pathways and processing conditions can be tuned so the material locks in more CO₂ while still meeting performance needs for real construction use.
January 15, 2026: Researchers developed degradable polymer capsules made from naturally derived, photoreactive monomers that form capsule particles when irradiated with light. The goal is to replace conventional non-degradable capsule polymers used to carry things like drugs and fragrances, which are implicated in persistent microplastics. The capsules can encapsulate small molecules, remain stable on the shelf for about a year, and then degrade either via short-wavelength-light photodegradation or by hydrolyzing ester bonds in the polymer.
January 18, 2026: Researchers report that an ultrathin silver treatment can toughen a brittle ceramic solid electrolyte and suppress crack growth and lithium intrusion—two failure modes that have dogged solid-state batteries. The idea is less “perfect manufacturing” and more “damage-tolerant surfaces,” which is a much more realistic route to scale-up.
January 19, 2026: Researchers report a high-precision way to watch how energy moves inside germanium immediately after it’s hit with ultrashort (30-femtosecond) laser pulses, tracking how excited electrons pass energy into lattice vibrations step by step. By combining time-resolved Raman spectroscopy with transient reflectivity, they follow changes in phonon frequency, intensity, and lifetime over picosecond timescales and separate different energy-loss mechanisms. The goal is to provide detailed understanding that helps engineers design semiconductors and devices that heat up less and recover/respond faster.
Featured Application Notes
Sulfur Analysis in Crude Oil and High-sulfur Fuels
This application note demonstrates quantitative analysis of high concentration sulfur in crude oil, high-sulfur diesel fuel and residual fuel oil according to ASTM D2622-16 on Rigaku ZSX Primus IVi, a wavelength dispersive X-ray fluorescence (WDXRF) spectrometer.
This application note demonstrates the elemental analysis of nutrients in silage, along with heavy metal screening using the NEX CG II energy dispersive X-ray fluorescence (EDXRF) analyzer. Measurements were performed using the Rigaku RPF-SQX Fundamental Parameters (FP) method and Matching Library calibration. This approach enables both standardless semi-quantitative elemental analysis and tuned quantitative performance when reference assays are available.
Development of a Digital Laboratory Integrating Modular Measurement Instruments
By Akira Aiba, Kazunori Nishio, and Taro Hitosugi
Recent advancements in digital technologies and machine-learning algorithms have contributed significantly to the development of digital laboratories. These systems autonomously investigate materials by integrating automated experimental setups. In this study, we developed a digital laboratory that connects a sputter deposition system, an X-ray diffraction (XRD) instrument (Rigaku SmartLab), and other measurement instruments. The key features of our system include (1) modularization of each experimental instrument to enable flexible adaptation to various experiments and (2) centralized cloud storage of measurement data in a unified format, allowing for data-driven materials science using machine learning.
The Opioid Matrix is a podcast for anyone looking for the latest information in the illegal drug supply chain—beginning to end. Each episode will feature a discussion with industry experts about the current opioid crisis, including drug trafficking, drug manufacturing, drug identification, drug addiction, as well as the role of government, law enforcement, new health and social programs, and more.
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