Welcome to the website of the Helmholtz-Zentrum Berlin für Materialien und Energie GmbH
The Helmholtz Zentrum Berlin (HZB) was founded by merging the former Hahn-Meitner-Institut Berlin (HMI) and the Berliner Elektronenspeicherring-Gesellschaft für Synchrotronstrahlung (BESSY), two of Berlin's largest research centres. As member of the Helmholtz-Association, HZB is financed by federal gouvernment (90%) and city state Berlin (10%).
The Helmholtz-Zentrum Berlin (HZB) operates two scientific large scale facilities for investigating the structure and function of matter: the research reactor BER II for experiments with neutrons and the synchrotron radiation source BESSY II, producing ultrabright photon beams ranging from Terahertz to hard X-rays. Due to this, HZB is one of the few centres world-wide to offer the whole range of instruments for neutron and synchrotron radiation within one laboratory structure. A common user gateway provides a unified proposal procedure with one scientific selection panel.
In the department of solar energy our scientists are working on the next generation of solar cells, including new kinds of materials and innovative cell structures. Long-term goals are to develop efficient and competitive thin film solar cells and multispectral cells. Thin-film technologies are developed to a stage where industrial applications can follow as the next step. As cofounder of the Photovoltaic Competence Centre (PVcomB) HZB supports the technology transfer to the industry.
News and Press Releases
Data at the end of the Tunnel
Electric control of aligned Spins improves Computer Memory
Researchers from Helmholtz-Zentrum Berlin (HZB) and the French research facility CNRS, south of Paris, are using electric fields to manipulate the property of electrons known as "spin" to store data permanently. This principle could not only improve random access memory in computers, it could also revolutionize the next generation of electronic devices.
[...].Stickstoff ist nicht so träge wie man denkt - Die neue Erkenntnis soll zu besseren Halbleitermaterialien führen
(german)
Stickstoff ist als Hauptbestandteil der Luft ein allgegenwertiges, aber trotzdem wenig beachtetes Element. Das Molekül gilt als reaktionsträge, man nennt es auch inert. Im Labor arbeitet man deshalb immer dann unter Stickstoffatmosphäre, wenn Sauerstoff oder die Feuchtigkeit der Luft zu aggressiv für empfindliche Proben sind. Der Grund für die Trägheit: Zwei Stickstoffatome sind im Molekül derart fest aneinandergebunden, dass sie für ihre Umgebung kaum Interesse haben. Forscher des Helmholtz-Zentrums Berlin für Materialien und Energie (HZB) kratzen nun an dem sauberen Stickstoff-Image. Im Fachmagazin Physical Review Letters erklären sie, was tatsächlich passiert, wenn Stickstoff mit einem Festkörper, wie zum Beispiel Zinkoxid in Verbindung tritt.
[...].