Ernst Eckhard Koch Prize and Synchrotron Radiation Innovation Award
The Ernst Eckhard Koch Prize went to Dr. Victoriia Saveleva (right) for her work on catalysts. © M. Setzpfandt/HZB
Laudator Prof. Gerd Schneider, award winners Dr. Christian David and Prof. Alexei Erko and Prof. Mathias Richter, Friends of HZB, (From left to right). © M. Setzpfandt/HZB
On December 6, 2018, the Association of Friends of Helmholtz-Zentrum Berlin awarded the Ernst Eckhard Koch Prize for an outstanding doctoral thesis in the field of research with synchrotron radiation at the HZB or at DESY as well as the European Innovation-Award on Synchrotron Radiation. The award ceremonies took place during the 10th User Meeting at the HZB.
The decisions between excellent proposals have not been easy for the two selection committees, Prof. Mathias Richter, chairman of the “Friends of HZB” pointed out.
The Ernst Eckhard Koch Prize went to Dr. Victoriia Saveleva for her doctorate at the University of Strasbourg on in-situ investigations of electrochemical processes using photoemission spectroscopy. Her experiments at BESSY II focused on reactions on catalyst surfaces of ruthenium and iridium during the electrolytic decomposition of water. Saveleva is now a postdoctoral researcher at the Paul Scherrer Institute in Switzerland.
The Innovation Award on Synchrotron Radiation 2018 went to Dr. Christian David, also from the Paul Scherrer Institute, and to Prof. Alexei Erko, who recently moved from the HZB to the Institute for Applied Photonics (IAP) in Berlin-Adlershof. The two physicists were honored for their innovative contributions to the application of diffractive X-ray optics, which enable complex X-ray experiments with high resolution. The laudation was held by Prof. Gerd Schneider from the HZB. This time it was not the "ring makers" who were honoured for developing the accelerators, but those who had cut the "diamonds for the ring", Schneider explained pictorially. The Synchrotron Radiation Innovation Award is sponsored by SPECS GmbH and BESTEC GmbH.
- 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.
- Magnetic field during catalyst synthesis triples ammonia yieldApplying an external magnetic field during the synthesis of CoFe₂O₄ electrocatalysts triples the ammonia yield during electrocatalytic conversion. The magnetic field alters the surface states of the spinel oxide thin films, making catalytically active sites more accessible. In the journal 'Advanced Functional Materials', a team led by Marcel Risch at HZB and Sanjay Mathur at University of Cologne demonstrates a scalable strategy for developing next-generation electrocatalysts for efficient and sustainable chemical production.