TU Berlin appoints Renske van der Veen as professor
Dr. Renske van der Veen investigates catalytic processes at BESSY II, which are crucial for the production of green hydrogen, among other things. © M: Setzpfandt/HZB
For the past two years, Dr Renske van der Veen has led a research group in time-resolved X-ray spectroscopy and electron microscopy at HZB. Her research focuses on catalytic processes that enable, for example, the production of green hydrogen. She has now been appointed to a S-W2 professorship at the Institute of Optics and Atomic Physics (IOAP) at the Technische Universität Berlin.
Dr Renske van der Veen specialises in ultrafast X-ray methods, which she uses at BESSY II to study the fast processes involved in catalysis. Van der Veen is also contributing her expertise to the scientific requirements profile for the successor X-ray source BESSY III.
Renske van der Veen studied at the ETH Zurich and completed her PhD at the École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL). She went on to do research at the California Institute of Technology, the Max Planck Institute for Biophysical Chemistry in Göttingen and the University of Illinois, where she was also an assistant professor. She has received the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation's Sofja Kovalevskaja Award and the Packard Fellowship for Science and Engineering.
- A simpler way to inorganic perovskite solar cellsInorganic perovskite solar cells made of CsPbI3 are stable over the long term and achieve good efficiencies. A team led by Prof. Antonio Abate has now analysed surfaces and interfaces of CsPbI3 films, produced under different conditions, at BESSY II. The results show that annealing in ambient air does not have an adverse effect on the optoelectronic properties of the semiconductor film, but actually results in fewer defects. This could further simplify the mass production of inorganic perovskite solar cells.
- Spintronics: A new path to room temperature swirling spin texturesA team at HZB has investigated a new, simple method at BESSY II that can be used to create stable radial magnetic vortices in magnetic thin films.
- BESSY II: How pulsed charging enhances the service time of batteriesAn improved charging protocol might help lithium-ion batteries to last much longer. Charging with a high-frequency pulsed current reduces ageing effects, an international team demonstrated. The study was led by Philipp Adelhelm (HZB and Humboldt University) in collaboration with teams from the Technical University of Berlin and Aalborg University in Denmark. Experiments at the X-ray source BESSY II were particularly revealing.