James Le Houx: Benchmarking Autonomy in Scientific Experiments: A Hierarchical Taxonomy for Autonomous Large-Scale Facilities https://arxiv.org/abs/2601.06978 https://arxiv.org/pdf/2601.06978 https://arxiv.org/html/2601.06978

Autonomous is a catch-all term that means everything and nothing right now. I'm curious: if you work at a beamline or a shared facility, what is the #1 thing stopping you from letting an AI agent drive your motors? Is it the latency, the safety, or the lack of trust?

Why do solid-state batteries fail? We used operando X-ray tomography to find out. 🧪 Bare Cu creates localized islands that trigger cracks, but a 50nm Ag nanolayer keeps things uniform and stable, even at high current. 📷🔋 #chemsky #batterysky #sciencesky

We need to stop measuring experimental success by data volume (TB/hour) and start measuring it by scientific insight. In our new arXiv preprint, we propose Heuristic Operando experimentation: a framework to teach beamlines how to think. arxiv.org/abs/2601.00851 #ScienceSky #AI #BatteryResearch

Some news! I’m starting a new chapter as a Senior Lecturer at Greenwich and launching the BASE Lab. We are teaching beamlines how to think, building a Self-Driving Microscope to hunt for battery failure. I'm also hiring our founding PhD student. Come build with us! #SciSky #AIforScience

​In the wake of the Airbus A320 groundings, it's worth remembering that the ISIS Neutron and Muon Source has a facility dedicated to replicating this kind of cosmic bombardment. ​It’s called ChipIR. ​It allows engineers to test the degradation of avionics before they ever leave the ground.

Diving into the new UK AI for Science Strategy. They’ve made a definitive call, prioritise generating new data over optimising existing archives. As a materials scientist, I think this is absolutely the right call. Here is why. 🧵1/3 #AIforScience #MaterialsScience

Played around with Meta's new SAM 3 on our X-ray data today. Top: Our manually trained U-Net (accurate but slow). Bottom: SAM 3 out-of-the-box ("white objects"). It misses some outliers, but getting 90% of the way there with zero training is a win for high-throughput workflows. #Science #AI

Huge congrats to Harriet Jones for winning best poster at #IBSim-4i! She's leading our project adapting #code_saturne for on-the-fly simulation from CT data enabling autonomous workflows. Thx judges & sponsor #3Dmagination! #IBSim4i #Simulation #Physics #CFD #AutonomousScience #chemsky #BattChat

At PorTo, ILL's new beamline, tackling Li-ion failure: electrolyte consumption, interlayer buckling, & overcharge. Running high-res neutron imaging + multi-modal (X-ray/Neutron) correlation & unsupervised AI. Thx Bratislav Lukić! #Liion #ILL #CorrelativeImaging #DataScience #chemsky #BattChat

ACS Spring 2026 abstract deadline: September 29th! We're chairing a new session in Atlanta. If you use large-scale facilities to study energy storage materials with photons, neutrons, muons, or lasers, we want to hear from you. Submit here: tinyurl.com/4e3envar #chemsky #research #ACSSpring2026

EIS ice baby New ideas can be found in the intersection between battery science and planetary science. Myself and @thebeamline.bsky.social are exploring how ice microstructure will impact radar measurements on Europa using tomography and EIS. #Europa #icymoons #planetaryscience #tomography 🧪

In-situ dark field X-ray microscopy of solid state batteries this week. Seriously challenging experiment, thank you to the whole team at ID03 @esrf.fr

The classic problem with the weakest link is that when you fix it, you just create a new one. We saw this happen in real-time with solid-state batteries. Our new preprint shows how fixing one interface just moves the failure to the next weakest spot. 1/6 Paper link: doi.org/10.26434/che...

What do solid-state batteries & plant roots have in common? Excited to share our new article in @theconversation.com written with my collaborator Siul Ruiz. We dive into the powerful mechanics roots use to navigate tough soils, vital for our food security. 1/4 theconversation.com/natures-unde...

Pocket coffee for those 4am beamtimes

Pretty exciting beamtime at @diamondlightsource.bsky.social I13-2 this week. We're going from manual sample centering to a fully automated process with a Yasakawa arm, hitting 150 battery samples a day and swapping optics from nm to µm resolution.

How do plant roots push through hard soil? Our new paper in npj Biological Physics and Mechanics uses X-rays to watch it happen. This new view can help us breed more resilient crops for a changing climate.🌾 #SoilScience #Agriculture tinyurl.com/5mdkrk3e @pereralj.bsky.social @tiinaroose.bsky.social

Well that's incredibly satisfying, new refactored code building and running a CI/CD pipeline in Github Actions. Only took 165 trys.....

Signs of life again....Watch this space

Harwell, home of the endangered bee orchid. Always impressed by the work of the conservationist team on site led by Bill Temple, looking forward to seeing them flower

Want a summer internship at Rutherford Appleton Lab? 🇬🇧 UK undergrads: learn battery characterisation, work with large science facilities & get hands-on exp with Gabriel Pérez & me! 🚨 Deadline April 14th (1 week left!) Apply: tinyurl.com/3trmeahp #STEMcareers #Internship #RAL #UKStudents

One of those days today

NEW PAPER ALERT! Ahem sorry for shouting. 5 XCT, 2 XRD-CT datasets, all from the same 13X Zeolite pellet. Designed to train: super resolution models (SR-GANs), DNNs for reconstruction, CNNs for image segmentation and data fusion of heterogeneous datasets. www.nature.com/articles/s41... #AI #ML

Structured Li-ion NMC electrodes this week. Mapping the charge state throughout the charging cycle #chemsky

@helenczerski.bsky.social Very immersive writing Helen

Need to figure out a less muddy cycle to RAL....

Impressed by the ambition and scope of the Clean Energy 2030 Action Plan. One thing I noticed missing is the energy capacity for LDES and batteries. A number of technologies decouple power and energy (flow batteries, pumped hydro, compressed air) and so just giving power isn't enough detail.

Rietveld! GNNs! PDF! GANs! If these things mean something to you (or if you'd like to learn more) tune in on Wednesday (2pm GMT) for the next Faraday masterclass. Led by Andy Sode Anker, we'll be delving into how to use AI/ML methods to analyse scattering and spectroscopic data. lnkd.in/e8qFJvD5

Important question I've been thinking about for a long time... Which synchrotron has the best canteen? #chemsky

New PhD position on the computational design of biopolymers electrolytes for Na-ion batteries. It will be supervised by Dr. Lu Xing at Northumbria with co-supervision from Dr. Ioan Magdau and myself! 🔋 Reposts appreciated! www.findaphd.com/phds/project... @chemistryncl.bsky.social

Want to know which energy researchers have migrated to @bsky.app ? go.bsky.app/3v7yzoj

A whole lot of equipment for such a small sample. Looking at all-solid-state battery designs this week with the LEC lab of @psich.bsky.social. Correlated XCT and depth profiled diffraction at #DIAD of #DiamondLightSource #MaterialsScience #netzero #EnergyMaterials #solidstate #battery #ChemSky

I can completely vouch for Hans, in the lab or on the climbing wall. Definitely reach out if you've got a lead.

No 🔋⚡ELECTROCHEMSKY⚡🔋 starter pack? That's fine, we'll make our own. go.bsky.app/7BokNKP

I made a preliminary starter pack for accelerator and synchrotron light source scientists and engineers! go.bsky.app/Y22Fz4

Battery Research people and those involved in the Battery Community. Trying to do my bit as everyone joins the X-odus and migrates to Blue Sky by curating #BattChat people. go.bsky.app/GKsPnAB Reply if you'd like to be in this starter pack. Trying to curate a resource as everyone rebuilds here.

I'm looking to grow some connectivity for materials scientists & engineers on BlueSky - if you identify in this grouping, I'd be happy to add you to this starter pack 🧪 go.bsky.app/U5wGm7M

My good friends are recruiting for a PhD project between @unibirmingham.bsky.social and Diamond Light Source, on X-ray total scattering for nano-structured energy materials, please share to anyone you think might be interested. #totalscattering #energymaterials #netzero tinyurl.com/4zjj5s43