The Application of HEXS and HERFD XANES for Accurate Structural Characterisation of Actinide Nanomaterials: The Case of ThO2 
A Novel Metastable Pentavalent Plutonium Solid Phase on the Pathway from Aqueous Plutonium(VI) to PuO2 Nanoparticles 
The missing pieces of the PuO2 nanoparticle puzzle 
Signatures of technetium oxidation states: a new approach 
Waiting on publishing of cover art to update this image
The TOP project (Towards the Bottom of the Periodic Table) is lead by Kristina and funded by both the European Research Council (ERC) for the period 2018-2023 (⁓1.5 mln €) and a Megagrant Project from the Ministry of Research and Higher Education of Russian Federation for the period 2019-2021(⁓1.3 mln €). She has two groups:
- TOP Group at The Rossendorf Beamline of The European Synchrotron (ESRF) in France, operated by the Institute of Resource Ecology at Helmholtz-Zentrum Dresden-Rossendorf (HZDR) in Germany.
- XAS group at The Chemistry Department of the Moscow State University in Russia.
The TOP group of Kristina studies fundamental physical and chemical properties of f-electron systems (actinides and lanthanides) through the revelation of the electronic structure and investigates the applications in which these systems play an important role. Our research is strongly oriented towards new developments in the field of advanced X-ray spectroscopy methods.
On our website, you can read the latest news, info about our research activities and group members, and view a list of our publications.
For more information, please contact Kristina directly; kristina.kvashnina@esrf.fr
Dr. Lucia Amidani
Scientific background: Physics
Special interests: the use of XAS, XES and RIXS coupled with theoretical simulations to understand the electronic structure of solid state materials
Current status: Postdoctoral Research Fellow
After her MA degree in solid state physics, Lucia joined the group of X-ray and Synchrotron radiation of Bologna University for her PhD and a first post-doctoral fellowship. After this experience focused on the use of XAS and XES to semiconductor systems, she moved to Grenoble and joined the ID26 beamline at ESRF to study lanthanides based luminescent materials with high energy resolution spectroscopy. From 2018 Lucia is involved in the theoretical understanding of actinide/lanthanide nanomaterials.
Dr. Stephen Bauters
Scientific background: Chemistry
Special interests: Energy dispersive detectors, beam line control, XRF MC-quantification, XAS, SPEC
Current status: Postdoctoral Research Fellow
Stephen received his PhD at Ghent University (Belgium) in a collaboration project with the ESRF CRG beam line BM26 DUBBLE, for which he constructed a polycapillary optics based confocal setup for XRF and XAS. He can often be found writing SPEC macros.
Dr. Paul Estevenon
Scientific background: Chemistry
Special interests: nuclear materials, actinide chemistry (especially plutonium), hydrothermal syntheses
Current status: Postdoctoral Research Fellow
Paul performed his PhD in collaboration between CEA Marcoule and ICSM on the synthesis of plutonium silicate and more generally AnSiO4 phases. Since October 2019, he is based on the Atalante facility at CEA Marcoule (France).
Evgeny Gerber
Scientific background: Chemistry
Special interests: Actinides and lanthanides chemistry, environmental radioactivity
Current status: PhD student
Evgeny is a shared PhD student between HZDR (Germany) and Department of Chemistry, LMSU (Russia), working on synthesis and characterization of the actinide and lanthanide nanomaterials using laboratory and synchrotron analytical methods.
Jurij Galanzew
Scientific background: Chemistry
Current status: PhD student
Jurij is from Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (Germany). His MS study at ROBL of ESRF in 2018 was focused on understanding the electronic structure of thorium systems by different theoretical and experimental approaches. Currently Jurij is a shared PhD student at KIT and HZDR for a period of three years (2018-2021).
Tatiana Poliakova
Scientific background: Chemistry
Special interests Environmental radioactivity. “Hot” (radioactive) particles. Actinides chemistry.
Current status: PhD Student/ Trainee
Tatiana is a PhD student from LMSU (Russia), working on characterisation of “hot” fuel particles in the environmental samples using laboratory and synchrotron methods.
Anastasia Smirnova
Scientific background: Chemistry
Special interests Modelling of XAS spectra
Current status: PhD Student/ Trainee
Anastasia works on the modeling of XAS spectra (XANES and EXAFS) using TDDFT ab initio approaches of quantum chemistry.
Past Group Members
Dr. Ivan Pidchenko
Status: Postdoctoral Research Fellow
(01/01/2018 – 01/09/2019)
Irina Sinenko
Status: Trainee
(01/03/2018 – 01/09/2018)
Anna Volkova
Current status: MS student
Anna’s MS studies at ROBL of ESRF in 2019 were focused on theoretical understanding of the electronic structure of uranium systems by CRISPY approach. Currently Anna is a MS student at LMSU.
Dr. Petr Matveev
Scientific background: Chemist
Special interests: Actinides and lanthanides chemistry, separation chemistry, HLW fractionation
Current status: Scientist
Petr graduated from LMSU and received a PhD in radiochemistry in the field of actinides separation.
Dr. Artem Mitrofanov
Scientific background: Materials science
Special interests: Quantum chemistry, machine learning, relativistic effects, materials science
Current status: Scientist
Artem received BA and MA in Materials science department, LMSU, making MA thesis partly in KIT. PHD thesis were devoted to in silico design of new ligand for actinides complexation. Currently working on a development of novel computational methods for heavy elements chemistry.
Maria Vatsadze
Current status: Administrative Assistant
Nikolay Andreadi
Scientific background: Chemistry
Special interests: Actinides and lanthanides chemistry, quantum chemistry
Current status: PhD student
Nikolai is a PhD student from LMSU (Russia), working on development of semi-empirical quantum chemistry methods, suitable for calculations of the systems with actinide atoms.
Jurii Nevolin
Scientific background: Chemistry
Special interests: Actinides and lanthanides chemistry, nuclear fuel cycle
Current status: PhD student
Jurii graduated a PhD at LMSU (Russia) and now preparing to the dissertation defense. Main part of the Jurii’s scientific work is devoted to the new approaches to spent nuclear fuel reprocessing and the An/Ln chemistry involved in it.
Svetlana Gutorova
Scientific Background: Chemistry
Special interests: Coordination of the f-elements
Current status: MS student
Svetlana studies the coordination of the f-elements with organic ligands by X-ray spectroscopy.
Ekaterina Konopkina
Scientific Background: Chemistry
Special interests: Coordination chemistry of actinides
Current status: PhD student
Ekaterina studies the coordination chemistry of metal cations with organic ligands using X-ray spectroscopy.
Daniil Novichkov
Scientific Background: Physics
Special interests: Instrumentation Development
Current status: Engineer
Pavel Zasimov
Scientific Background: Chemistry
Special interests: Electronic Structure Calculations
Current status: PhD student
Pavel is engaged in modeling of the X-ray absorption spectra for the 4f – electron compounds.
Past Group Members
Anastasia Kuzenkova
Scientific Background: Material science
Special interests: Solubility and chemistry of actinides, sorption of radionuclides onto graphene oxide
Current status: MS student
Anastasia is a master student of the faculty of material science in LMSU (Russia), investigating interaction mechanism of graphene oxide and other carbon-based materials with radionuclides and its sorption properties for radionuclides removal, applying synchrotron analytical methods.
