New Publication in the Prestigious Journal "Nature Communications"

The article appears in Nature Communications (NC), an open-access, multidisciplinary journal dedicated to publishing high-quality research across the natural sciences—including biology and life sciences, physics, chemistry, mathematics, Earth and environmental sciences, and engineering—reflecting the thematic scope of the faculty’s departments. Highly regarded among specialists in the natural sciences, the journal’s open-access format ensures broad dissemination. In 2024 alone, articles published in NC were downloaded more than 177 million times, and the journal’s five-year impact factor stands at 17.2.

Dr. habil. phys. Uldis Bērziņš, lead researcher at UL FST IAPS, in collaboration with scientists from the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN), as well as researchers from the USA, Canada, Germany, Sweden, and Finland, has developed and demonstrated a novel method for studying negative ions of a small number of radioactive elements. This method combines two types of ion traps based on different principles with laser spectroscopy. The experimental setup and final measurements were carried out at CERN, while the preparatory work took place at the Institute of Atomic Physics and Spectroscopy.

“This achievement has significant implications for atomic physics, nuclear physics, and the chemistry of superheavy elements. For unstable isotopes, such as the heaviest elements, conventional measurement techniques are not applicable. Therefore, the method described in this manuscript opens new avenues for atomic science in the study of superheavy elements,” noted one of the manuscript’s reviewers.

Article: F.M. Maier, E. Leistenschneider, M. Au, U. Berzins, et al. “Enhanced sensitivity for electron affinity measurements of rare elements”, Nature Communications 16, 9576 (2025).
Project funder: Latvian Council of Science (Project No. Lzp-2023/1-0199 “Laser Photodetachment Spectroscopy on Negative Ions”).