Come to the Long Night of the Sciences in Wannsee: 17.06. from 5-0 p.m.
e will open our doors for the Long Night of the Sciences. Get exciting insights into our energy research, visit laboratories and ask us your questions about the energy transition. Our school lab invites you to take part in hands-on experiments - and a science show will keep you pumped up and amazed! Please bring your identity card!
Saturday promises beautiful summer weather and we will open our green, nature-oriented campus in Wannsee for you. Immerse yourself in the world of research for one night and bring lots of questions! At HZB, we work every day to develop materials and solutions for a climate-neutral society. See how ultra thin solar cells can be made and learn what we are doing to make green hydrogen cheaper to produce in large quantities in the future. We are also researching new batteries that can store more energy than conventional ones in Wannsee.
Twelve different laboratories alone are open to you. Experience our research up close: whether crystal structures, atomic layers, solar cells or our high-tech microscopes - there is something interesting for everyone. A guided tour for children "The fantastic properties of light and how to explain them" and a tour of the orchard meadow are also on the programme. In addition, there are exciting lectures, among others on the plastic flood or photovoltaics in building facades.
On the Science Street there are many information stands with experiments. Here you can talk directly to our researchers. Among other things, we will show you how the decommissioned research reactor BER II is to be dismantled in the coming years. In addition, we will present the therapy of eye tumours with protons - this is also carried out at the Wannsee site.
Feel free to take a break in between. Our canteen offers delicious food and drinks. We also cook for you with a solar cooker (when the sun is shining) and invite you to taste our nitrogen ice cream.
When and where?
17.06.2023 from 5-0 op.m.
Helmholtz Centre Berlin
Hahn-Meitner-Platz 1
14109 Berlin
To be reached by shuttle buses from S Wannsee
Access regulations:
For security reasons, the following regulations apply to visits to the HZB: Persons aged 16 and over must present their valid original identity card (alternatively passport). Admission for persons under 16 years of age is only permitted when accompanied by a person of full age.
Tickets:
Adults: €14, reduced €9, family €27 (other ticket types here). Combined ticket with use of public transport and special buses for the Long Night. Tickets for the Long Night can be purchased here. There is also a box office at our Wannsee location.
- Cool vaccines in rural Kenya: solar solution has been awarded by UNIn May 2026, Tabitha Awuor Amollo is spending some weeks as a guest scientist at HZB, analysing perovskite thin films at BESSY II. The Kenyan physicist from Egerton University, Nairobi, was recently recognised for her achievements in research and teaching. For the development of a solar-powered refrigeration system for use in rural health centres, she has been awarded the 2026 Organization for Women in Science for the Developing World (OWSD)-Elsevier Foundation Award. An interview on exceptional projects and daily struggles of a scientist. Questions were asked by Antonia Rötger.
- 83 pupils at Girls'Day at HZBOn 23 April 2026, the annual Girl’s Day took place, giving pupils an insight into various career paths in the fields of science and technology. 83 pupils visited the Adlershof and Wannsee sites and enjoyed a day full of exciting experiments.
- Electrocatalysts: New model for charge separation at the solid-liquid interfaceHydrogen is at the heart of the transition to carbon neutrality, as both an energy carrier and a reagent for green chemistry. However, large-scale production of hydrogen via electrolysis, as well as the production of many other chemical products, requires significantly cheaper and more efficient catalysts. A precise understanding of the electrochemical processes that take place at the interface between the solid catalyst and the liquid medium is highly useful for developing better electrocatalysts. In the journal Nature Communications, an European team has now presented a powerful model that determines charge separation at the interface, the formation of the electric double layer and local electric potential variations, and the resulting influence on the catalytic activity.