At the International Conference on Neutron Scattering (ICNS) 2025 – July 6-10 in Copenhagen (Denmark) and Lund (Sweden), several ENSA – European Neutron Scattering Association awards were presented to researchers who work or have worked at the LLB – Laboratoire Léon Brillouin: Dalila Bounoua, Iurii Kibalin and Juan Rodriguez-Carvajal.
The Erwin Félix Lewy Bertaut 20255 prize is awarded to Dalila Bounoua,
“for her outstanding contributions to the field of novel magnetism in high-temperature copper oxide superconductors. Her pioneering use of cutting-edge polarized neutron diffraction, combined with advanced photon-based techniques, has opened new avenues for understanding the pseudogap phase. Her work has firmly established her as a leader in the field, built on exceptional expertise in neutron and photon methods, materials synthesis, and single-crystal growth.”
Her oral contribution at the conference focused on the topic:
“Hidden Magnetic Texture in the Pseudogap Phase of the High-Tc Superconducting YBa2Cu3O6+x“, Dalila Bounoua, Yvan Sidis, Toshinao Loew, Frédéric Bourdarot, Martin Boehm, Paul Steffens, Lucile Mangin-Thro, Victor Balédent, Jun Qian, Xin Yao and Philippe Bourges.
Dalila Bounoua is member of the research team LLB/NFMQ since 2017.
The “Neutron Instrumentation and Innovation Prize” 2025, is awarded to Iurii Kibalin
“for his significant impact on polarized neutron diffraction techniques. His development of the CrysPy software tool has transformed polarized neutron powder diffraction on magnetic samples into a routine, accessible method for a broad scientific community.”
His oral contribution at the conference focused on the topic:
“CrysPy: probing magnetic anisotropy using polarized neutron diffraction”, Iurii Kibalin and Arsen Gukasov.
The “Cryspy” software analysis tool, made available to the community, enables measurement of the magnetic susceptibility tensor (local magnetic anisotropy) using polarized neutron diffraction methods. The method has been generalized to the case of polycrystalline samples, enabling measurement even when samples are difficult to manufacture in single-crystal form.
Iurii Kibalin worked as a post-doc at LLB/NFMQ in 2016-2017, and again from 2018 to 2023. He is currently member of ILL.
Le “Walter Hälg Prize” prize 2025 is awarded to Juan Rodriguez-Carvajal, for the development of the “Full Prof” software:
“Widely recognized as the “father of FullProf” — the globally renowned software for crystallographic and magnetic studies — Juan Rodriguez-Carvajal has made an extraordinary impact on the field. FullProf is among the most widely used programs for Rietveld analysis of powder diffraction data. Juan Rodriguez-Carvajal is not only an exceptional scientist with profound instrumental expertise, but also possesses deep insight into the underlying physics of neutron scattering, particularly in the realm of strongly correlated materials. He actively shares his knowledge through training courses and schools worldwide, and continues to develop FullProf in close collaboration with its user community, advancing the software in step with scientific and technological progress”.
Provided to the international community, Full Prof is a tool for analyzing X-ray or neutron diffractograms on polycrystals, using the Rietveld method. The software takes many effects into account: instrumental resolution, texture, rigid groups, absorption, single-crystal cases, and enables magnetic structures to be determined. Historically based on the method of irreducible representations, the software is now based on the formalism of magnetic space groups or supergroups.
His oral contribution at the conference focused on the topic:
“The evolving FullProf Suite and CrysFML: the road ahead”, Juan Rodriguez-Carvajal, Nebil A. Katcho and Javier González-Platas.
Juan Rodriguez-Carvajal is a former member of the LLB, where he was in charge of the very high-resolution G42 powder diffractometer for determining and refining the crystallographic and magnetic structure of polycrystalline samples with relatively large (primitive) mesh volumes. Now head of the diffraction group at ILL, he has continued to work closely with LLB teams throughout his career.
Congratulations to the 3 award recipients.