Ernst Eckhard Koch Prize and Innovation Award on Synchrotron Radiation
Dr Fredrik Johansson (Institut des NanoSciences de Paris, CNRS, Sorbonne) receives the Ernst Eckhard Koch Prize for his outstanding dissertation. © F.J.
The prize for innovation in synchrotron research went to Professor Marianne Liebi and Dr Manuel Guizar-Sicairos, both from the Paul Scherrer Institute (PSI), Switzerland. © PSI
This year, the Friends of HZB awarded the Ernst Eckhard Koch Prize to the outstanding doctoral thesis of Dr Fredrik Johansson (Institut des NanoSciences de Paris, CNRS, Sorbonne). The European Innovation Award on Synchrotron Radiation went to Professor Marianne Liebi and Dr Manuel Guizar-Sicairos, both from the Paul Scherrer Institute (PSI, Switzerland). The award ceremony took place at this year's HZB user meeting, which had to be held digitally again this year and attracted nearly 400 participants.
The chairman of the Friends of HZB, Professor Mathias Richter, guided the award ceremony on screen. Six high caliber nominations were up for selection this year for the Ernst Eckhard Koch Prize.
Ernst Eckhard Koch Prize 2021
The Ernst Eckhard Koch Prize went to Dr Fredrik Johansson (now Institut des NanoSciences de Paris, CNRS, Sorbonne) for his dissertation at Uppsala University on "Core-hole Clock Spectroscopy Using Hard X-rays - Exciting States in Condensed Matter".
"Overall an exceptional dissertation achievement" said the expert jury, highlighting the number of Johansson’s high-quality scientific publications. "Also impressive is the demonstration of orbital and directional selectivity in ultrafast charge transfer in SnS2 using core-hole-clock," the jury said. Johansson then presented the method in a clear and concise talk: it allows a precise measurement of charge transfer times in different solids and promises deeper insights into solar cells, for example.
Innovation Award on Synchrotron Radiation 2021
The Innovation Award on Synchrotron Radiation 2021 went to Professor Marianne Liebi and Dr Manuel Guizar-Sicairos, both from the Paul Scherrer Institute (PSI), Switzerland. They developed and implemented a method to obtain information about textures in materials on the nanoscale from small angle scattering data using mathematical methods (Small Angle Scattering Tensor Tomography). The expert jury emphasised that this method is now used at many synchrotron sources and has opened the door to fascinating studies of hierarchical structures in life and materials science. The laudation was given by Professor Gabriel Aeppli, Head of the Photon Science Division at PSI. The Innovation Award on Synchrotron Radiation is endowed with 3000 € and is sponsored by SPECS GmbH and BESTEC GmbH.
- 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.
- 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.