Dr. Raul Garcia Diez wins the Dissertationspreis Adlershof 2017
Dr. Raul Garcia Diez was awarded for his PhD Thesis with the Dissertationspreis Adlershof 2017.
Jury with nominees and the winner, Dr. Raul Garcia Diez, (left), Photo: Matthias Brandt
With his talk on the properties of nanoparticles and how they can be measured more accurately at BESSY II, Dr. Raul Garcia Diez convinced the jury and was awarded the Dissertationspreis Adlershof 2017. Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, IGAFA e. V. and the WISTA MANAGEMENT GmbH are the sponsors of this prize endowed with 3000 Euros. Garcia Diez completed his PhD in 2017 at PTB and TU Berlin and is now active as a post-doctoral researcher at HZB.
The use of nanoparticles in medicine is continuously growing, for example as platforms for drug-delivery or encapsulating imaging agents. In order to tailor nanoparticles for these applications, the functional properties of these particles need to be well understood.
In his thesis on "Characterization of Nanoparticles by Continuous Contrast Variation with Small-Angle X-ray Scattering" Raul Garcia Diez developed a method to study nanoparticles in a realistic environment with X-ray small-angle scattering in order to gain valuable information. The work was carried out with the HZB SAXS instrument, which is operated at the FCM beamline of the Physikalisch-Technische Bundesanstalt (PTB) in BESSY II under the cooperation between PTB and HZB.
With his work at PTB with Prof. Matthias Richter, he obtained his PhD title in May 2017 at the TU Berlin. Since then, Garcia Diez is a postdoctoral fellow with Prof. Marcus Bär at the HZB.
- Electrocatalysis with dual functionality – an overviewHybrid electrocatalysts can produce green hydrogen, for example, and valuable organic compounds simultaneously. This promises economically viable applications. However, the complex catalytic reactions involved in producing organic compounds are not yet fully understood. Modern X-ray methods at synchrotron sources such as BESSY II, enable catalyst materials and the reactions occurring on their surfaces to be analysed in real time, in situ and under real operating conditions. This provides insights that can be used for targeted optimisation. A team has now published an overview of the current state of knowledge in Nature Reviews Chemistry.
- BESSY II: Phosphorus 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 in phosphorus. 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.
- 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.