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In: Energymaterials, Students, Summerstudents

Have you noticed that strange whistling sound on Hahn-Meitner Campus at Wannsee? When I told the PhD students of the research group for inorganic and solid state chemistry at the Technische Universität Berlin that I will be part of the Summer Students Programme at the Helmholtz-Zentrum Berlin, one of them had something interesting to tell me. He advised me to pay attention to a whistling sound on Campus Wannsee and he also revealed to me where to find the source of the sound. So on my fourth day at Wannsee I decided to find that thing that made me listen attentively to its music. AtRead More →

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In: International, Summerstudents

Date: Not important From: Not important                                              Departure at: Not important Destination: Not important                                  Arrival at: Not important Duration: 13h 45min The flight started with much hope, some thoughts and many dreams for what is coming after it lands. It turned out that I should had thought a little about the flight itself in advance. It took only a couple of minutes to figure out that the IndianRead More →

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In: Energymaterials, Students, Summerstudents

Exploring the hidden secrets of materials using spectroscopy Over 60% of Germans rely on glasses and unsurprisingly, this is not a modern phenomenon. The first eyeglasses were made in Italy in the 13th century and their importance has grown since. But sometimes, good vision is not sufficient in order to explore the hidden secrets of materials. In the last century, physicists have developed a method called spectroscopy, which is a technique used to analyse light by breaking it up into its component colours and it’s something that I am doing very regularly during the summer student programme at the HZB. Designing the next generation ofRead More →

THE ROAD TO ARTIFICIAL PHOTOSYNTHESIS

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In: Energymaterials, International, Students, Summerstudents

As a summer student at the HZB, I am working at the Institute for Solar Fuels on Artificial Photosynthesis research. In the project, I am taking part in, we aim  to improve and characterize two materials, namely BaxMnyOz and MnxVyOz. By using Pulse Laser Deposition (PLD) as the synthesis method, our goal is to investigate the structure and photoelectrochemical properties of these materials by various methods and optimize them towards improving their solar-water-splitting efficiency. This project and research at the Institute for Solar Fuels is based on the search for new light absorbing materials, which can harness the sun’s radiation to produce clean energy from the most abundant resource on earth, water (H2O). This hasRead More →

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In: Lightsources

For years, the researchers at HZB have been working intensively on upgrading the electron storage ring into a variable pulse length storage ring (BESSY VSR). Now things are becoming concrete: On 30 July BESSY II is switched off for ten weeks. Then the first modifications in the experiment hall are due to be carried out in order to realize BESSY VSR. “We have four or five very tough but also very exciting years ahead of us,” project manager Andreas Jankowiak said upon BESSY VSR’s approval in June 2017. With these words, he hinted at the mountain of work the various teams at HZB are nowRead More →

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In: International, Students, Summerstudents

This year’s Summer Student Program have just began and it’s already being one of the greatest experiences I’ve ever had since I chose to make of science my life path. Since the first day you could sense a great mood and an incredible disposition on the students part and also on the program’s organizers. The days have pass and the disposition and the good mood are still evident. Speaking for me now, I’m a Cuban student and this is the first time I leave my country; but, is there a better reason for a scientist to do it other than to meet great people andRead More →

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In: International, Students, Summerstudents

The Summer Student programme is on the way. After the first two weeks, I have had the opportunity to discover, not only my project, but also, the opportunity to meet colleagues from all over the world, and to discover a country and an unknown city to me until now. The title of the project is “Synthesis and tomographic analysis of metallic cellular materials”. The aim of this project is to produce cellular materials of titanium and magnesium with different percentages of porosity and different size of pores, which have potential applications in the replacement of hard tissue. To succeed in this project, I am learningRead More →

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In: Careers, International, Lightsources, Students

“Growing those crystals in the lab is much more tricky than I thought”, Nickie Messini says. “But I really like it as much as the computational analysis for structure refinement!” The young bachelor student from University of Patras, Greece, has already produced some tiny crystals of the protein Endothiapepsin at the MX lab for protein crystallography at BESSY II. It is not easy to force those large Endothiapepsin molecules into the rigid order of a crystal, but Nickie knows how to achieve it. Endothiapepsin crystals are ideally suited as a model system to facilitate the search for new drugs by a method called fragment screening.Read More →

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In: Lightsources

It was after a telephone call in 2003 that Manuela Klaus’s career took off. Right about the time Klaus had just graduated in materials sciences from TU Berlin, the phone rang in the office of Christoph Genzel of the Microstructure and Residual Stress Analysis department. “It was a drill bit manufacturing company from Baden-Württemberg calling,” the department head recollects. The callers needed help with improving their drill bits: they wanted to measure the residual stress of the material at the precise points where the bits are most stressed – “and I said there are no methods to do that yet. But I know of justRead More →

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In: Conference, Energymaterials

At the Interdisciplinary conference on „INNOVATION IN SOLAR BUILDING SKINS & ENERGY EFFICIENCY TOWARDS SUSTAINABLE CITIES”, 19th to 20th march in Berlin, experts from the building sector, politics, finance and photovoltaics discussed why Building Integrated Photovoltaics (BIPV) is not already more widely applied in buildings (see also HZB-webinfo ) and what innovations are still needed. Statements from participants of the conference:   Lighthouse projects show what is possible Impressive projects by architects and engineering offices demonstrate what can be done already: Elegant modern buildings with solar facades and solar active materials for windows, pavements or other surfaces do not only provide energy and mitigate climateRead More →