BESSY II – From Pico to Femto – time resolved studies at BESSY II
180 scientists listened to the lectures. The aim of the dialogue is to identify future scientific fields as well as expectations, needs and requirements for BESSY II.
180 scientists attended the workshop on time resolved studies
From 26 to 27 January 2015, at the HZB workshop “From Pico to Femto”, more than 180 scientists discussed the advantages of conducting measurements on different time scales. With BESSY VSR, HZB is looking forward to perform a so-far unique upgrade to an electron storage ring: When complete, BESSY II will offer a flexible pulse duration of the useful light without diminishing the brilliancy of the light pulses.
Which specific areas of research could benefit from this was presented by speakers from university and non-university research establishments over two days in parallel sessions. Thematic blocks addressed in the lectures included magnetism, energy research, biosystems, and catalysis research.
Presently, BESSY II already allows measurement on different time scales, with methods such as low-alpha mode and femtoslicing available for user experiments. As it stands, however, this is limited because the short pulses come at the cost of light intensity.
“We were especially pleased to see so many researchers who have not yet experimented at BESSY II taking part in our workshop,” says organizer Dr. Antje Vollmer. About one third of the participants who followed the lectures in the full BESSY auditorium are potential new users of the facility.
The participants also expressed their own future needs for the machine and sampling environment. The results of the discussions were recorded and will be incorporated into the future plans for the BESSY VSR upgrade project.
The event was part of a series of foresight workshops HZB will be holding as a way to communicate closely with the user community about their research interests and needs. Already this year, more workshops will be held to address further questions regarding research at the photon source BESSY II.
You can read the abstracts of the lectures in the workshop booklet: booklet
- BESSY II: Phosphorous chains – a 1D material with 1D electronic propertiesFor the first time, a team at BESSY II has succeeded in demonstrating the one-dimensional electronic properties of a material through a highly refined experimental process. The samples consisted of short chains of phosphorus atoms that self-organise at specific angles on a silver substrate. Through sophisticated analysis, the team was able to disentangle the contributions of these differently aligned chains. This revealed that the electronic properties of each chain are indeed one-dimensional. Calculations predict an exciting phase transition to be expected as soon as these chains are more closely packed. While material consisting of individual chains with longer distances is semiconducting, a very dense chain structure would be metallic.
- Did marine life in the palaeocene use a compass?Some ancient marine organisms produced mysterious magnetic particles of unusually large size, which can now be found as fossils in marine sediments. An international team has succeeded in mapping the magnetic domains on one of such ‘giant magnetofossils’ using a sophisticated method at the Diamond X-ray source. Their analysis shows that these particles could have allowed these organisms to sense tiny variations in both the direction and intensity of the Earth’s magnetic field, enabling them to geolocate themselves and navigate across the ocean. The method offers a powerful tool for magnetically testing whether putative biological iron oxide particles in Mars samples have a biogenic origin.
- What vibrating molecules might reveal about cell biologyInfrared vibrational spectroscopy at BESSY II can be used to create high-resolution maps of molecules inside live cells and cell organelles in native aqueous environment, according to a new study by a team from HZB and Humboldt University in Berlin. Nano-IR spectroscopy with s-SNOM at the IRIS beamline is now suitable for examining tiny biological samples in liquid medium in the nanometre range and generating infrared images of molecular vibrations with nanometre resolution. It is even possible to obtain 3D information. To test the method, the team grew fibroblasts on a highly transparent SiC membrane and examined them in vivo. This method will provide new insights into cell biology.