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In: Energymaterials, Summerstudents

Have you ever been sitting in company, discussing ridiculous stories about your scars and injuries? Probably, yes. Once, I spent a whole evening talking about these funny cases with my friends. However, the story of the scar I got because of a hot radiator, was outshined by a guy who has gotten a serious burn while he was sleeping with a laptop on his knees. That day I didn’t believe his story, but later I noticed that occasionally my electronic devices heated up incredibly. “Nothing is perfect”, I thought and forgot about this episode for a while. A couple years later, I arrived in aRead More →

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In: International, Students, Summerstudents

If you try to search for “PSO” abbreviation in wiki you may find Pacific Symphony Orchestra or Phase-shift oscillator. However, my project at HZB is about neither music nor electricity, but mathematics. For almost a month here I have been working on an algorithm called Particle Swarm Optimization method and I would like you to have some impression of it.  Optimization Actually, the definition of optimization problem is quite simple. One has a function of n-variables f(x1, …, xn) and seeks to find such values of variables that give minimum to the function. However, the solution is not that simple, because in general you cannotRead More →

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In: Energymaterials, Lightsources

Nanoparticles are tiny, really tiny. Only a fraction of a micrometer or some nanometers in size. And only some thousands of molecules strong,  their properties can differ dramatically from those of their larger cousins. Titaniumdioxide, a whitish powder, can form such nanoparticles. In water, these nanoparticles can act as catalysts, when excited with light. and facilitate water splitting or water remediation. However, what happens exactly when TiO2 and water get into contact and which impact this is having on the electronic structure of TiO2 remained in the dark: it is very tricky to probe nanoparticle–water interface experimentally and to observe changes. Soft X-rays at BESSYRead More →

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In: Careers, Energymaterials

Altmetrics just published the list of the top 100 scientific articles of 2017, which attracted the most online attention. None of the articles in the top 100 is dealing with materials research. Nevertheless, already the second most spread article is concerning us as well: It is a study on mental health of PhD students. The paper was spread more than 7000 times by twitter, posted 117 times on facebook and quoted in more than 20 online-articles. And it is giving food for thought: Every third PhD suffering seriously According to the study “Work organization and mental health problems in PhD students”, published in Research Policy,Read More →

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In: Energymaterials, Lightsources

Source: SESAME Thursday, November 23, 2017:  At 10:50 yesterday morning scientists at the pioneering SESAME light source saw First Monochromatic Light through the XAFS/XRF spectroscopy beamline. This signals the start of the laboratory’s experimental programme. The beamline delivers X-ray light that will be used to carry out research in areas ranging from solid state physics to environmental science and archaeology. “After years of preparation, it’s great to see light on target,” said beamline scientist Messaoud Harfouche. “We have a fantastic experimental programme ahead of us, starting with an experiment to investigate heavy metals contaminating soils in the region.” Two beamlines for a start, a third one inRead More →

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In: Summerstudents

All summerstudents will present their projects in a conference at HZB Campus Wannsee on thursday 18 September. The conference will start at 11:00 with four talks. The speakers have been elected by the summerstudents themselves. After lunch, the poster session starts. Every student has prepared a poster presenting her or his project, the context, the motivation and what has been achieved during the two months project in summer 2017. An award is given to the best poster along criteria such as communications skills, layout and design, and – of course – scientific achievement. 11.00-12.00 Oral Presentations 13.30 -15:30 Poster session 16.00 Presentation of the posterRead More →