Using the synchrotron to help develop cleaner energy
When PhD candidate Kiersten Kneisel arrived at the Australian Synchrotron in Melbourne, she was stepping into one of the most powerful scientific facilities in the Southern Hemisphere—and one that would play a key role in her PhD research.
A synchrotron is a huge, ring‑shaped machine that accelerates electrons to nearly the speed of light. As they race around the ring, they give off an extremely bright light, more than a million times brighter than the sun. Scientists use this light to investigate the structure and behaviour of materials at the atomic and molecular levels.
“It’s similar in principle to the particle accelerator at CERN (European Laboratory for Particle Physics), but instead of colliding particles, we use the light to understand the fundamental properties of materials,” says Kiersten.
There are only two operational synchrotron light sources in the entire Southern Hemisphere, making the Australian Synchrotron a crucial facility for researchers across Aotearoa New Zealand. Kiersten used the synchrotron to study advanced materials that could help reduce carbon emissions in heavy industry and support cleaner energy systems.
“You can’t solve industrial-scale problems with guesswork. You need a detailed understanding of what’s happening at the atomic level,” she says.
At the synchrotron, her experiments focused on how nitrogen interacts with material surfaces. This is a key step in producing carbon‑free fuels and chemicals like ammonia, which is essential for fertiliser and global food production. The intense synchrotron light allowed her to directly observe how these materials break apart nitrogen’s incredibly strong atomic bonds.
Through Te Herenga Waka—Victoria University of Wellington’s partnership with the New Zealand Synchrotron Group (NZSG), Kiersten was able to access the facility, which is a competitive and merit‑based process.
“It was an honour to have our proposal accepted,” she says. That access, along with funding support for travel and training, helped accelerate her research and led to two first‑author papers published in “Physical Review B”, a gold standard journal for materials research.
“Accessing the synchrotron has been much more than just using a piece of equipment. It’s been a classroom and a stage for my early‑career growth, and it’s helped me build the skills and collaborations needed to work on developing materials that could really make a difference on a global scale,” Kiersten reflects.