20 Years Russian-German Joint Laboratory at BESSY II
To mark its 20th anniversary, the Russian-German Laboratory at the BESSY II storage ring for synchrotron radiation in Berlin is organising an online workshop on 18 and 19 November. Scientists will discuss the future perspectives of Russian-German cooperation as well as innovative projects and new goals of the laboratory.
Since its foundation two decades ago, numerous scientists from Russia and Germany have worked at the Russian-German Joint Laboratory and have since published around 770 publications. The research cooperation is now supported by eight partner organisations - Freie Universität Berlin, Helmholtz-Zentrum Berlin, Technische Universität Dresden and Technische Universität Bergakademie Freiberg. They are joined by St. Petersburg State University, the Ioffe Institute in St. Petersburg and the Kurchatov Institute and Shubnikov Institute of Crystallography in Moscow.
The laboratory receives funding from the Federal Ministry of Education and Research. Messreisen supports the HZB and the German-Russian Centre of Excellence G-RISC, which is funded by the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD) with funds from the Federal Foreign Office.
The researchers will use the anniversary workshop to discuss current highlights from their research. Expert lectures will deal with the magnetism of two-dimensional crystals, i.e. novel materials that can make the computer hardware of the future more powerful and energy-efficient, as well as new battery materials and the question of why novel materials for solar cells show unexpectedly high efficiency. "What does the future hold for the Russian-German Laboratory?" asks Eckart Rühl, Professor of Physical Chemistry at the Free University of Berlin and coordinator of the research laboratory. New synchrotron radiation sources are already being planned in Germany and Russia, he says. "BESSY II will continue to provide excellent opportunities for the Russian-German Laboratory in the coming decade. And the planned successor source BESSY III will make previously unfeasible experiments possible!" emphasises Prof. Dr. Jan Lüning, scientific director of Helmholtz-Zentrum Berlin.
Program of the Workshop on 18 and 19 November 2021
- Israel Ibukun Olaniyan receives the Helmholtz Doctoral Award 2026At Helmholtz, more than 8,000 doctoral candidates conduct research. Eleven of them have now been honored for their original and outstanding work, among them Dr Israel Ibukun Olaniyan from the HZB. His doctoral thesis "Ferroelectricity at the nanoscale in epitaxial BaTiO3 on silicon" in the group of Professor Catherine Dubourdieu represents a step towards a new nanoelectronics based on topological defects, that can potentially help to create an energy efficient information technology.
- Only at BESSY II worldwide: IR nanoscopy at very long THz wavelengthsThe team at the IRIS beamline at BESSY II has created a new experimental option: They achieved infrared nanoscopy with a spatial resolution of around 50 nm at very long THz wavelengths. This was possible thanks to a temporal pattern of light pulses known as the low-alpha operating mode at BESSY II. Worldwide, BESSY II is the only synchrotron light source at which users could perform nanoscopy in a single setup from 25 to 4000 cm-1, a unique opportunity for ultra-broadband characterisation of complex materials at the nanoscale in both the life sciences and materials sciences.
- Ultrafast demagnetisation - Thinner iron, stronger effectThe thinner an iron film, the more easily it can be demagnetised by a laser pulse. Researchers at the University of Duisburg-Essen, working with Helmholtz-Zentrum Berlin and other partners, have discovered why: the key lies in the magnetic order at the material's interfaces. In the long term, these findings could contribute to the development of new technologies for magnetic data storage. The results have been published in the scientific journal Advanced Science.