Successful master's degree in IR thermography on solar facades
Luca Raschke © BAIP/HZB
IR thermoraphy, BIPV living lab © BAIP/HZB
We are delighted to congratulate our student employee Luca Raschke on successfully completing her Master's degree in Renewable Energies at the Hochschule für Technik und Wirtschaft Berlin - and with distinction!
As part of her master's thesis on “Thermographic Investigation of Photovoltaic Modules in a Building-Integrated Application”, she investigated the use of infrared thermography as a tool for the inspection and maintenance of facade-integrated PV modules, focusing on the CIGS facades of our Living Lab for building-integrated photovoltaics at the Helmholtz-Zentrum Berlin. In doing so, she not only investigated the measurement methodology and the specific application for vertically-installed facade modules, but also carried out complementary investigations with electroluminescence and other electrical characterisations of the modules. With her thesis, she made valuable contributions to our ongoing research and development in the field of BIPV.
We are proud of this outstanding achievement and are delighted that we can celebrate this important milestone together! Luca Raschke remains a part of the consultancy office for BIPV, but from now on as a student at the Berliner Hochschule für Technik (BHT) in the Architecture program. We wish her continued success.
- Marcel Risch has been appointed Professor at the Freie Universität BerlinMarcel Risch was appointed to a W2-S professorship in the Department of Physics at Freie Universität Berlin in August 2026. His research group has been transformed into the department 'Mechanisms of Sustainable Electrocatalysis'. Risch investigates the fundamental mechanisms of electrocatalytic reactions and, on this basis, develops knowledge- and data-driven strategies to improve electrocatalysts for the sustainable production of hydrogen, fuels and chemicals.
- 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.
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