Walter-Schottky-Award for Felix Büttner
Dr. Felix Büttner is leading a Helmholtz Young Investigator group at HZB on topological solitons. © privat
The Walter Schottky Prize honours outstanding work by young physicists in solid-state research. For 2022, the award goes to HZB physicist Dr Felix Büttner for his groundbreaking achievements in the field of magnetic skyrmions.
"His work has contributed significantly to the understanding of the ultrafast generation and properties of these topological states."
This praise on Büttner's work is published on the website of the German Physical Society (DPG), which awards the Walter Schottky Prize.
The DPG further explains: Magnetic skyrmions are spin textures that behave like quasiparticles and have a non-trivial topology. Felix Büttner has made a decisive contribution to the fundamental understanding of the dynamics of skyrmions, taking their topology into account. He has used time-resolved X-ray holography and scattering experiments on X-ray lasers to elucidate the mechanisms of the generation of skyrmions by short laser pulses and to improve the possibilities for the fast and efficient movement of skyrmions by current pulses in ladder structures.
Felix Büttner studied in Göttingen and received his PhD in 2013 for his work at the interface of magnetism (Mathias Kläui, JGU Mainz) and X-ray physics (Stefan Eisebitt, TU Berlin). After a stint in industry at Daimler AG, he worked as a postdoctoral researcher at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology with G.S.D. Beach in 2015-2020. Since 2020, he has been leading an independent research group at the Helmholtz Zentrum Berlin für Materialien und Energie.
The award is expected to be presented in March 2022 during the DPG Spring Meeting in Regensburg.
- Porous Radical Organic framework improves lithium-sulphur batteriesA team led by Prof. Yan Lu, HZB, and Prof. Arne Thomas, Technical University of Berlin, has developed a material that enhances the capacity and stability of lithium-sulphur batteries. The material is based on polymers that form a framework with open pores (known as radical-cationic covalent organic frameworks or COFs). Catalytically accelerated reactions take place in these pores, firmly trapping polysulphides, which would shorten the battery life. Some of the experimental analyses were conducted at the BAMline at BESSY II.
- Metallic nanocatalysts: what really happens during catalysisUsing a combination of spectromicroscopy at BESSY II and microscopic analyses at DESY's NanoLab, a team has gained new insights into the chemical behaviour of nanocatalysts during catalysis. The nanoparticles consisted of a platinum core with a rhodium shell. This configuration allows a better understanding of structural changes in, for example, rhodium-platinum catalysts for emission control. The results show that under typical catalytic conditions, some of the rhodium in the shell can diffuse into the interior of the nanoparticles. However, most of it remains on the surface and oxidises. This process is strongly dependent on the surface orientation of the nanoparticle facets.
- KlarText Prize for Hanna TrzesniowskiThe chemist has been awarded the prestigious KlarText Prize for Science Communication by the Klaus Tschira Foundation.