The Institut Laue-Langevin (ILL) facility in Grenoble, France, has for the past 40 years been using neutron science to collect important data on fundamental questions in physics, such as what is dark matter and do parallel universes exist? More recently it has investigated industrial topics such as magnetism, superconductivity, materials engineering, biological substances and nanoparticle behaviour.
For example, recent projects have used neutron diffraction to understand how segments of DNA move from one place to another, or to characterise biomaterials formed on titanium dioxide implants. Another project has revealed important information about how potential drug delivery agents such as gold nanoparticles react with biological cells. The results could have implications for many of the companies – including AstraZeneca1 – that are looking at nanoparticles as drug delivery agents.
So how is it, that these subatomic particles, which normally reside in the nucleus of an atom, can tell us so much?
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