New joint leadership for BESSY II
Andreas Jankowiak and Antje Vollmer have been working together on a trusting basis for many years. As the new dual leadership, they are driving forward the technical and scientific development of BESSY II. © HZB/M.Setzpfandt
Andreas Jankowiak as new Technical Director and Facility Spokesperson Antje Vollmer share management responsibilities.
Prof. Andreas Jankowiak has been appointed Technical Director of BESSY II with a term of office of three years as of 1 June 2024 by resolution of the HZB board of directors. Antje Vollmer will start her second term as BESSY II Facility Spokesperson on 1 July 2024. Together, they form the new management duo to coordinate the scientific and technical development of the BESSY II X-ray source on behalf of the HZB management.
They will coordinate with internal stakeholders and external partners, prioritise their requirements, make recommendations to the HZB board of directors and prepare management decisions.
With the establishment of the new management duo, Prof. Bernd Rech, Scientific Director of HZB, wants to streamline the organisational processes around BESSY II and delegate related management tasks. "Our BESSY II+ application and the conceptual preliminary report for the BESSY III (pre-CDR) project have been evaluated extremely positively by scientific review committees," says Bernd Rech. "We must now create the conditions to successfully implement the strategy that has been positively assessed and supported by the supervisory bodies. The new division of labour should help to clearly identify and initiate the necessary steps."
The management duo will work on an equal basis and in mutual coordination. The Facility Spokesperson will focus on all priorities, project planning, investment plans and processes relating to user operation and the strategic and scientific development of the BESSY II user facility and the complementary lab infrastructure. The Technical Director is responsible for the operation of BESSY II and prioritises operational priorities, project planning, investment projects and processes as well as the strategic-technical development of the BESSY II facility and the central infrastructure required for this, including the IT infrastructure.
- BESSY II: High-resolution insights into individual biomolecules and catalystsVery small biological samples and even individual biomolecules can now be examined under near-physiological conditions with high confidence at the BESSY II infrared beamline with a newly validated and improved technique: The nanoscale infrared spectroscopy (s-SNOM) with ultra-thin silicon-based membranes. An international team demonstrated after an initial proof of concept, that high-resolution (a few tens of nanometres) nano-IR measurements reliably match expected far-field IR spectra in an aqueous environment. This methodological advance provides a solid foundation for studying biomaterials or observing catalytic processes in a liquid environment.
- New method shows how molecular switches are influenced by their neighborsResearchers at Friedrich Schiller University Jena and the Helmholtz Centre Berlin (HZB) have, for the first time, been able to directly observe how the environment surrounding a molecular switch influences its electronic structure. Molecular switches are molecules that can be switched between two states by external influences such as changes in temperature—similar to a switch with the positions »On« and »Off«. Such molecules are being investigated as potential building blocks for future data storage devices or sensor materials. Using magnetic-field-dependent terahertz spectroscopy, the researchers have now, for the first time, been able to distinguish whether neighbouring molecules in a material are in the same or different states. The results have been published in the journal »Angewandte Chemie International Edition«.
- SEAlab accelerator project completed: Achievements and outlookThe SEAlab accelerator project successfully completed its final measurement campaign in summer 2026. The facility is now being dismantled, with many components set to be reused. The two accelerator physicists, Axel Neumann and Thorsten Kamps, explain what the project has achieved and provide an outlook for the future.