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.
- Nanosilver as an electrocatalyst for CO₂ reductionVia electrolysis, CO2 can be reduced to CO, a raw material for further chemical products such as fuels. Within the GreenQuest Project, an internation team led by HZB chemist Prashanth Menezes has now systematically investigated catalyst layers made of silver nanoparticles, varying both the size of the particles and their density. The best yield was achieved with nanoparticles with diameters of around 10 nm, which were loosely distributed. Furthermore, they demonstrated how the economic efficiency of the electrochemical cell can be enhanced by integrating an additional chemical reaction at the anode, enabling the simultaneous production of a valuable formic acid, hydrogen, and CO in one device.
- Spin waves inside a nano-oscillator imaged for the first timeFor the first time, researchers have directly imaged the magnetisation dynamics inside a spin Hall nano-oscillator — a nanoscale device that converts direct current into tunable microwave signals and is a promising building block for energy-efficient wireless communication and brain-inspired computing. A Swedish–German team led by the University of Gothenburg and Helmholtz-Zentrum Berlin (HZB) achieved this using time-resolved scanning transmission X-ray microscopy at the MAXYMUS instrument at BESSY II. The results, now published in Advanced Materials, reveal spin-wave features that had escaped previous, indirect measurement techniques.
- Marcel Risch has been appointed Professor at the Freie Universität BerlinMarcel Risch was appointed to a W2-S professorship in the Department of Physics at Freie Universität Berlin in August 2026. His research group has been transformed into the department 'Mechanisms of Sustainable Electrocatalysis'. Risch investigates the fundamental mechanisms of electrocatalytic reactions and, on this basis, develops knowledge- and data-driven strategies to improve electrocatalysts for the sustainable production of hydrogen, fuels and chemicals.