By summerstudent Yara Mahboub > I am Yara, a bachelor student in my 5th year of the nanoelectronics engineering program, and I joined a whole team of physicists. I guess if there was a reason that made Facebook invent the ‘it’s complicated’ status, it would definitely be to describe the physicists/engineers’ relationship.Read More →
By summerstudent Rohn Cephas> After discovering the HZB summer student program in LINKEDIN; I did immediately apply: Since that moment, my eyes were glued to my email to see if my application would bear the result. I was more than happy when I was listed among the International Summer School Students 2024 followed by the VIPERLAB project. In HZB, I am working on a project on perovskite solar cells which I could barely do in my home country Kenya due to the unavailable conditions required for their fabrication: A clean room and an inert environment are nothing to even imagine in the labs I wasRead More →
By summerstudent Samora Amanda Buthelezi> It took me three weeks to adapt in Berlin and the laboratory at HZB. Many times, I walked alone. I usually kept quiet and felt lonely while I was with others. I felt very bad thinking that other people would think that I was avoiding them on purpose. I realized that for me to adapt, I must be open-minded, expect some differences in a new place, try new things like eating new food, accept new ideas, and hang around with other local people. I am a person who is calm, shy, and gentle. I overcame shyness by communicating more withRead More →
By summerstudent Alice Rodgers> The annual global carbon dioxide emissions have increased by over three times since the 1960s, and in 2023 they were an estimated 36.8 billion tonnes.1 This is primarily due to the use of fossil fuels as an energy source and therefore in recent years it has become important to find renewable sources of energy. Since the 1990s lithium-ion batteries (LIBs) have become one of the most important ways of storing energy and have applications in everything from mobile phones to cars. However, lithium is a limited resource making the supply chain of LIBs at risk. Furthermore, there are ethical and environmentalRead More →
By summerstudent Lorenzo Ubilla> Bessy II is a giant ring where dancing electrons create x ray light used by over 40 beam lines. As Newton once said, it stands on giant’s shoulders (quite literally since its located between Albert Einstein Str. And Max Planck Str.) and hundreds of scientists go there everyday to accomplish their goals or pale in frustration.Read More →
By summerstudent Julen Lasarte> An English proverb says: “A calm sea doesn’t make good sailors”. This is one of the reasons that made me come to Berlin. Obviously, it’s not that Berlin was for me “a bad sea”; I am passionate about history, coming to Berlin was a real luxury and luck for me. On top of that I had to come to work in what I like the most. But coming here made me get out of my comfort zone. I confess that the days before coming to Berlin were not easy, I’m a person who thinks a lot about his worries: “Will IRead More →
By summerstudent Heloise da Silva> One month ago, I had never been on a plane or even visited an airport before, let alone traveled to another country. My life was familiar: I have been working on a project for almost three years in Brazil, knew my way back home, knew which train to take, and how to behave properly. I could even handle groceries by myself, which in Berlin, feels like running a marathon because you have to be quick — the line moves fast!Read More →
By summerstudent Gia Van Tran > Hop on the RE train at 7h12. I take out my pen and notebook to write down what I did yesterday and stupid mistakes to avoid. Then, I note down my daily tasks and some papers that would be nice to read when I was not in experiment time. That should take me at most 5 minutes to finish, so I still have around 50 minutes of commuting time.Read More →
By summerstudent Christina Papaefthymiou> When I applied for the HZB Summer Student Program in December 2023, I had no idea what was to come. Knowing that finding accommodation in Berlin is not an easy task, I felt very lucky to secure an apartment four months before my arrival. Deep inside, I knew that once I stepped foot in Berlin, everything would fall into place and my fears would go away. And so it happened. The only unexpected condition when I arrived was the warm weather….Read More →
By summerstudent Muhammad Kashif Raza> Nothing worthwhile is accomplished easily, and this summer program at HZB served as a reminder of that. From visa issues as a non-European student to finding accommodation in bustling capital city Berlin, I faced numerous challenges. Literally, it took about four months getting visa and finding the dormitory. But real test started when I reached my apartment in Berlin and found no Pakistani food around…Read More →