A new X-ray absorption fine structure (XAFS) measurement system under atmospheric pressure in the soft X-ray region has been installed at the beamline BL11 of Saga Light Source (SAGA-LS) in Japan. XAFS spectra in the lower photon energy region of about 2–4 keV could be newly obtained at the beamline. The system was applied to obtain sulphur K-edge XAFS spectra of solid and oily specimens using fluorescence yield and electron yield modes. The spectra were successfully collected. We anticipate that this new system will have various applications in environmental and biochemical research.

We have synthesized nickel by means of pulsed laser ablation. A nickel disc was used for ablation with the focused output of fundamental harmonic from Nd:YAG laser. X-ray diffraction result shows that the synthesized nanoparticles are of pure metallic nickel with a face-centred cubic structure and the average particle size is 35 nm. The extended X-ray absorption fine structure (EXAFS) studies of pure nickel foil and the synthesized nanoparticles show similar structures. The position of the main peak is same in these nanoparticles with reference to the nickel foil. The only difference was observed in the reduction of the amplitude. The nearest-neighbour distance is similar as for pure nickel foil. The Debye–Waller factor is also similar. There is no trace of oxide and hydroxide in the EXAFS data, suggesting that the synthesized nanoparticles contain only nickel metal.

We report here an extensive study of the ZnO nanoparticles (NPs) capped with different organic molecules by X-ray absorption spectroscopy (XAS) methods to proceed in the understanding of their unusual magnetism. We have performed a detailed ab initio calculation of the Zn K-edge XAS aimed at determining the influence of the different coordination induced by the capping. The results suggest that the observed differences of the XAS spectra are due to the formation of a well-defined interface between the oxide NPs and the capping molecules. The appearance of magnetism should be related to the modifications induced in the NPs by the surface bonds between Zn and the capping molecule.