Modernisation of BESSY II+ light source
Antje Vollmer is spokeswoman for BESSY II and project lead of the BESSY II+ project. She says: "BESSY II is rising to the scientific and societal challenges. The positive feedback from users encourages us in this!" © HZB/M. Setzpfandt
The 16th edition of the BESSY@HZB user meeting will take place on 11-12 December 2024 in Berlin-Adlershof. 400 participants exchange information about research at BESSY II. This year, Romania is the country of honour. © HZB/M. Setzpfandt
The focus of the User Meeting 2024: Helmholtz-Zentrum Berlin (HZB) presents the BESSY II+ upgrade programme. It enables world-class research at BESSY II to be further expanded and new concepts to be tested with regard to the successor source BESSY III.
Every year in December, HZB invites the users of BESSY II light source to Adlershof for an exchange of expertise. Research highlights of the year are presented and the wishes of the user community regarding future developments are discussed.
"BESSY II is now in its 27th year of operation," says Antje Vollmer, BESSY II spokesperson. "The expectations of our users have changed over the years. They want additional infrastructures, laboratories close to the beamlines and have high expectations of the sample environment. Research interests have also changed. For example, we are seeing a strong interest in battery research and energy conversion processes."
This is where the BESSY II+ project comes in. The aim is for BESSY to become an "operando synchrotron for the energy transition".
A bridge to the future: the BESSY II+ project
BESSY II+ offers new experimental possibilities, especially for operando investigations. These make it possible, for example, to watch batteries or solar cells "at work". In addition to the new "operando" possibilities, the BESSY II+ project also focuses on the two topics of "modernisation" and "sustainability". Sustainability involves, among other things, the utilisation of waste heat from the BESSY II experimental hall. Machine learning and artificial intelligence will also be even more integrated into many processes.
Funding of BESSY II+
As part of the modernisation project, the HZB has received additional funding from the Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF). "Invest BESSY II+" covers the most important investments for the project, which the BMBF is supporting to the tune of 17.45 million euros. This funding secures the development of new infrastructures, such as the SoTeXS instrument, which stands for soft-to-tender X-ray spectroscopy. This is a comprehensive concept for operando, metrological, multi-modal experiments that will be of great benefit to research into batteries and materials for energy applications.
Antje Vollmer emphasises: "BESSY II is facing up to the scientific and social challenges. The positive feedback from users encourages us to do so!"
- 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«.
- BESSY II is back in operation after maintenance shutdownOn 7 September 2026, BESSY II was set into operation after a four-week shutdown. BESSY II is scheduled to resume full user operation on 22 September.