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Updated: Sep 11, 2025

Neutron Spin Echo Spectroscopy as a Unique Probe for Lipid Membrane Dynamics and Membrane-Protein Interactions
Published on: May 27, 2021
15 years of spin-echo spectroscopy at SNS-NSE: Looking back and looking forward
Piotr A Zolnierczuk1, Laura-R Stingaciu1, Olaf Holderer2
1Neutron Sciences Directorate, Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL), 1 Bethel Valley Road, Oak Ridge, TN 37831, USA.
Abstract:
High-resolution neutron spin echo (NSE) spectroscopy offers unique insights into the mobility of molecular (sub)structures excited by thermal fluctuations (i.e., Brownian motion) of "soft matter" as polymers in solution and in the melt, in biological matter (e.g., protein motions), membranes, and glasses. The ability to tag substructures using H, D contrast variation to resolve the relevant timescales of dynamics on selected molecular items in liquids, soft matter, and melts is a significant advantage of NSE. Also slow magnetic fluctuations on molecular length scales in the range of nanoseconds, e.g., in spin glasses or topological spin structures, can be accessed. This paper reviews the highlights and peculiarities of the SNS-NSE, based at the pulsed neutron source SNS, during its first 1.5 decades of operation. An outlook and perspectives of research in the domain of high-resolution spectroscopy is given.
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