English: It's 3 AM in the morning at the synchrotron, four hours before shutdown, and physicist Heiko Timmers is on the job supervising reflectometry experiments to detect magnetism in defective graphene oxides. This is achieved by placing the sample between four large magnets with the strength of a hundred fridge magnets at a tilt angle to the incoming soft X-ray light such that it is at grazing incidence. Behind the reflective glass is an ultra-high vacuum environment much like in space. This avoids absorption of X-rays in particles found in ambient air. The characterisation of the 2D material was crucial for his students first journal article publication, thus its easy to see how one can grow restless waiting for the results. Synchrotron beamtimes are often both exciting and exhausting, in our case it got us that publication.

English: It's 3 AM in the morning at the synchrotron, four hours before shutdown, and physicist Heiko Timmers is on the job supervising reflectometry experiments to detect magnetism in defective graphene oxides. This is achieved by placing the sample between four large magnets with the strength of a hundred fridge magnets at a tilt angle to the incoming soft X-ray light such that it is at grazing incidence. Behind the reflective glass is an ultra-high vacuum environment much like in space. This avoids absorption of X-rays in particles found in ambient air. The characterisation of the 2D material was crucial for his students first journal article publication, thus its easy to see how one can grow restless waiting for the results. Synchrotron beamtimes are often both exciting and exhausting, in our case it got us that publication.