Dancing BESSY-VSR
Paul Goslawski from Godehard Wüstefeld's team was the initiator of this project: Why not demonstrate in vivid form, what the future project BESSY-VSR is all about? With novel cavities to be introduced in synchrotron storage ring BESSY II, the new BESSY-VSR is supposed to compress some of the stored electron buckets. So it is possible to produce brilliant light pulses with variable length: short and long pulses in one ring. The user is able to choose what kind of pulse he needs for his experiment. But the team still has to solve some tricky problems.
Two short movies are now produced to show how BESSY-VSR works and what remains to be solved: The principle as well as the difficulties are now being performed with a dance!
To realize his project, Paul quickly found enthusiastic volunteers: 24 colleagues took part, among them two heads of institutes. Most of them danced in a circle (the storage ring) as "electron buckets", while the "cavities" provided some drive to the system. With the help of a few more colleagues, the shooting of the videos itself only took one afternoon, whereas Paul spent some weekends editing the final film.
But it was worth the effort! Now, the two short films are available in the HZB media centre and on youtube, both in german and english language. "They could even be of good use in presentations", Paul says. Because only motion pictures can illustrate complex physics in an easy way.
- Superconducting TES array X-ray spectrometer goes into operation at BESSY IIEurope's first and only TES-spectrometer at a synchrotron source is now in operation at BESSY II, developed within a collaboration between the HZB, the MPI-CEC (Mühlheim-an-der-Ruhr, Germany) and the NIST (Boulder CO, USA). The photon detection efficiency of the new instrument exceeds that of wavelength-dispersive X-ray emission spectrometers by a factor of 100 to 1000. It will be used to investigate the electronic properties of atomically thin layers, nanostructures and highly diluted atomic and molecular samples. The team is looking forward to receiving exciting research proposals from the user community.
- Magnon momentum microscopy: A new window into nanoscale spin-wavesAn international team lead by the Max Born Institute has developed a new type of momentum microscopy to image magnons — the quanta of collectively excited spins — directly in two-dimensional reciprocal space using soft X-rays. Measurements have taken place at BESSY II and PETRA III, first author ist the HZB physicist Steffen Wittrock. Owing to its remarkable sensitivity, simplicity, and access to nanometer-scale wavelengths, this novel technique establishes a powerful and versatile platform for exploring nonlinear magnon interactions, which are promising for future computing schemes.
- BESSY II: How intrinsic oxygen shortens the lifespan of solid-state batteriesAlthough solid-state batteries (SSBs) demonstrate high performance and are intrinsically safe, their capacity currently declines rapidly. A team from the TU Wien, Humboldt-University Berlin and HZB has now analysed a TiS₂|Li₃YCl₆ solid-state half-cell in operando at BESSY II using a special sample environment that allows for non-destructive investigation under real operating conditions. Data obtained by combination of soft and hard X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS and HAXPES) revealed a new degradation mechanism that had not previously been identified in solid-state batteries. They have gained some surprising insights, particularly regarding the harmful role played by intrinsic oxygen. This study provides valuable information for improving design and handling of such batteries.