Bookmarks (40)

With 32 academic and industrial partners, the program led by DESY receives 4 million euros of funding from Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions to support 15 PhD projects and act as an accelerator for the European innovation ecosystem. The application portal will open on April 1st.

New high-resolution X-ray and electron microscopy methods enable the optimization of energy materials at the atomic level. Researchers at DESY are studying catalysts for more efficient water electrolysis and ultra-fast switching processes for more powerful processors – a key to the energy transition and future technologies.

A team of DESY researchers, led by DESY lead scientist and University of Kiel professor Melanie Schnell, has managed to control the generation of left- and right-handed organic molecules at the single quantum level using a sequence of microwave pulses, a long-standing challenge in chemistry. The phenomenon of handedness, or chirality, is critical for understanding the chemical foundations of life, as well as for...

By laying the foundation stone of the DESY Innovation Factory in the Altona Innovation Park today, DESY is setting an important milestone on the way to Science City Hamburg Bahrenfeld. Hamburg's Second Mayor and Senator for Science Katharina Fegebank, Melanie Leonhard, Senator for Economics and Innovation, and other guests of honor attended the event.

A previously unseen quantum phenomenon first predicted several years ago has been experimentally demonstrated by an international research team, including DESY scientists, at PETRA III. The team observed a tornado-like quantum structure in a semimetal compound, tantalum arsenide (TaAs), wherein electrons behave like a swirling vortex in momentum space. The discovery, a collaborative effort between the Würzburg–Dresden Cluster of Excellence for Complexity and Topology...

More than 800 million people live near an active volcano. Some of these volcanoes still defy existing models, making the exact prediction of their eruptions impossible. This is the case for Colli Albani in Italy, which has produced major explosions in the past despite its magma being normally associated with mild effusive eruptions. An international team led by the University of Geneva (UNIGE) and...

The Beate Naroska Awards for the year 2024 will be awarded to Ursula Bassler (Laboratoire Leprince-Ringuet at École Polytechnique) and to Azadeh Maleknejad (Department of Physics, King’s College London).

With the help of the world's most powerful X-ray laser, European XFEL, a research team led by Goethe University Frankfurt and the research centre DESY has achieved an important breakthrough: Using the example of the pharmaceutically active substance 2-thiouracil, they applied a long-established imaging technique to complex molecules for the first time. Although 2-thiouracil is no longer applied therapeutically, it is part of a...

The kick-off event for AstroCentPlus (AC+) - an important project for the further development of astroparticle physics in Poland - took place in Warsaw in mid-February. AC+ is funded by the EU ‘United in Excellence’ programme and aims to expand the AstroCent Institute at the Nicolaus Copernicus Centre of the Polish Academy of Sciences as an international centre for cutting-edge research and innovation. DESY...

It’s official: with an inaugural ceremony on 26 February on the DESY Campus in Hamburg, the DESY-initiated Centre for Molecular Water Science (CMWS) Consortium has formed. The CMWS is a Europe-wide research network in the field of molecular water research, crossing subjects, disciplines, and methods. Forty-seven founding members from twelve countries – including fourteen German universities and eight Helmholtz Centres – have signed the...

Soil bacteria studies of climate impacts, optimized plant behaviour, artificial intelligence in super markets, a robot dog prototype: all things that you could find at DESY at the regional Hamburg-Bahrenfeld competition of Jugend Forscht (lit. “Young people do research”). The Germany-wide science fair allows children the chance to perform actual research and compete on the strength of their results. In this regional competition, held...

A delegation consisting of representatives from the Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft and from DESY signed a strategic collaboration agreement in Munich today. Their groundbreaking collaboration aims to pool expertise, infrastructure and knowledge across individual research institutions to open up new paths for the commercialization of technology in industry and society.

How can scientific findings be converted into innovations for society as quickly as possible together with industrial users? This question was the focus of discussions between DESY representatives and industrial partners together with Melanie Leonhard

Last week the first CTAO ERIC Council Meeting was held in Bologna, Italy, and marked the beginning of a new management era. The CTAO ERIC Council was formally established during this inaugural meeting, solidifying the governance framework of the CTAO. Following the European Commission’s creation of the CTAO ERIC in January 2025, the newly formed Council plays a fundamental role in steering the organisation’s...

A team led by DESY scientist Tim Laarmann has successfully detected the vibrational fingerprints of glucose molecules in aqueous solution using a nonlinear optical method in the mid-infrared spectral range called ultra-broadband vibrational sum-frequency generation (VSFG) spectroscopy. The centerpiece of this study is a state-of-the-art VSFG spectrometer that operates effectively at physiologically relevant low sample concentrations in the range of 10 mM, or about...

Light-sensitive nanoparticles promise a wide range of applications, for example in the field of sensor technology or energy generation. However, these require knowledge and control of the processes taking place within them. Plasmons, collective electron movements in the nanoparticle which transport energy, are essential in the behaviour of such nanoparticles. Time-resolved experiments in the attosecond range reveal now that the importance of electronic correlations...

How are innovation and transfer activities implemented at a research center like DESY? This question was the focus of a visit on 5 February by Michael Kellner, Parliamentary State Secretary at the Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Climate Protection (BMWK), to the DESY campus in Zeuthen. During talks and a tour, he learned how DESY develops new technologies and promotes the transfer of...

An international team of scientists from DESY, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, the University of Edinburgh, and Karlsruhe Institute for Technology has developed a novel approach to accurately determine the melting temperature of opaque materials using X-ray phase contrast imaging and X-ray diffraction in the laser heated diamond anvil cell at up to pressures of 500 000 bar and 4000 Kelvin. The team lead by...

Do you sometimes find yourself thinking, ‘I wonder what ChatGPT has to say about this’? It has become common practice to consult artificial intelligence (AI) on a wide range of topics and problems. Scientists at DESY and the University of Hamburg have now asked this question with regard to operating an accelerator and have discovered that ChatGPT can help them to run these machines....

Over the past years, scientists worldwide have collaborated extensively to develop cutting-edge approaches with helical free-electron laser (FEL) pulses. These advancements aim to capture some of the fastest motions in nature, exploring them at the level of specific elements with a special ‘twist’. In Physical Review Research, leading experts from institutions such as the University of Hamburg, DESY, European XFEL, and SLAC outline the...

Andrea Trabattoni, a scientist at CFEL, DESY, and W2 professor for Ultrafast Photoelectron Research at Leibniz University Hannover (LUH), has been awarded a Niedersachsen-Impuls-Professorship. This prestigious funding is aimed at advancing his career by expanding his expertise, refining his professional profile, and preparing him for future leadership roles in science. Additionally, the grant is set to strengthen the already close collaboration between DESY and...

High level of participation once again at the users' meetings 2025 of the Hamburg X-ray light sources. More than 1100 scientists have registered to discuss latest research performed at the DESY's X-ray light source PETRA III and free-electron laser FLASH as well as at the X-ray laser European XFEL and to inform themselves about new developments and future prospects over the course of the...

Jacco Vink, a leading expert in the field of high-energy astrophysics, has been awarded the prestigious Humboldt Research Award. This accolade recognizes internationally renowned scientists whose work has made a lasting impact on their field. The award includes a research stay at DESY, fostering further scientific collaboration.

The quantum computing company Quantinuum and a DESY team led by Karl Jansen, head of the Center of Quantum Technology and Applications (CQTA) at DESY, have achieved an important milestone. Using Quantinuum’s H1 quantum computer they studied a model in Lattice Gauge Theory, a mathematical tool used to understand fundamental processes in nature.

The Wolfgang Pauli Center for Theoretical Physics (WPC), a joint institution of DESY and Hamburg University, hosted a groundbreaking master class on “Invitation to Black Hole Thermodynamics” led by Professor Edward Witten, one of the most influential physicists of our time. Held at DESY from 14 to 17 January, the event attracted more than 300 registered international participants, underscoring the global interest in Witten’s...

Official start of construction: Eva Gümbel, Hamburg State Councillor for Science, Research and Equality, DESY Director Helmut Dosch, Accelerator Director Wim Leemans and other guests of honour laid the foundation stone for DESY's Centre for Accelerator Science and Technology (CAST) today. The new research building will provide DESY with a new centre for accelerator research - one of DESY's strategic core areas.

Researchers at DESY, together with international colleagues, have discovered a new class of enzymes that can be used to uncover previously unknown biological processes. The researchers suspect that these bacterial “diDNases” - the technical term - could play an important role in the immune defense of bacteria. The team recently published their findings in the renowned journal “Nucleic Acids Research”, and the publication was...

Sarah Heim has joined the Institute of Experimental Physics at the University of Hamburg as a professor after a successful application to the Helmholtz programme “Funding of first-time professorial appointments of highly talented female scientists.” She will continue in her role as DESY scientist and started her professorship titled “Physics, with a focus of dark matter and Higgs analysis at ATLAS” in December 2024.

DESY researchers have achieved a major advance in optical microchip production: they have developed a millimeter-sized high-power amplifier with an output power of over one watt - many times more than was previously possible on this tiny scale.

On January 7, 2025, the European Commission has established the Cherenkov Telescope Array Observatory (CTAO) as a European Research Infrastructure Consortium (ERIC), furthering its mission to become the world’s largest and most powerful observatory for gamma-ray astronomy.

Spectroscopy expert Felix Allum from Stanford University will use DESY’s free-electron laser FLASH for time-resolved X-ray spectroscopic investigations of the dynamics of organic photochemical reactions with potential synthetic applications. He comes to Hamburg through a Humboldt Research Fellowship, a funding programme offered by the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation for international researchers to conduct long-term research projects in Germany.

Britta Redlich will take over the lead of the Photon Science research division at DESY on 1 January 2025. The Professor of experimental physics was previously Director of the FELIX free-electron laser and the HFML high-field magnetic laboratory at Radboud University in Nijmegen (Netherlands).

The international multi-instrument Event Horizon Telescope Collaboration (EHT) reveals new observations of a spectacular gamma-ray flare from the powerful relativistic jet emanating from the centre of the M87 galaxy at multiple wavelengths, potentially leading to a better understanding of how and where particles are accelerated in these kinds of jets.

An international team of scientists, with participation of DESY, has succeeded in producing and directly controlling hybrid electron-photon quantum states in helium atoms. To this end, the team headed by Dr. Lukas Bruder, junior research group leader at the Institute of Physics, University of Freiburg generated specially prepared, highly intense extreme ultraviolet light pulses using the FERMI free electron laser in Trieste, Italy. The...

In the HQML (Hamburg Full Stack Quantum Machine Learning) project, companies and DESY are working together with the DLR QCI to develop a full stack quantum solution for image data processing.

The morning of 27 November was exciting for the ATLAS team at DESY. They reached a major milestone in the construction of an endcap for the new silicon strip detector for the ATLAS experiment at CERN in Geneva. The basic mechanical structure of the endcap (the “skeleton”), which is made of carbon fibre and was built in Amsterdam at the Dutch national particle physics...

How can cancer drugs be delivered safely to their destination? An international team of researchers has been using the X-ray source PETRA III to test a technique for visualising how a drug is distributed inside tumour cells. In the future, this approach could help to develop more targeted and hence more effective cancer therapies. The working group has presented its findings in the journal...

DESY theorist Aditya Pathak has been awarded a Starting Grant from the European Research Council (ERC) ― one of the most coveted European research grants for early-career researchers – for his research project TOPMASS. Starting in September 2025, Pathak will lead a group that will work towards strengthening the precision of measurements of the top quark’s mass.

Christoph Heyl, research group leader at DESY and the Helmholtz Institute Jena, has been awarded a prestigious ERC Consolidator Grant, providing him with funding of 2 million euros over five years for his research project ‘Gas Phase Sonophotonics’ – GASONIC. With the highly competitive Consolidator Grants, the European Research Council (ERC) supports excellent scientists in further expanding and consolidating their innovative research and to...

DESY's trainees are the best! Both in Hamburg and in Zeuthen, trainees in various professions are among the most successful in their year. Til Étienne Kaeber, a trainee in Zeuthen, was honoured as the best electronics technician for devices and systems by the Cottbus Chamber of Industry and Commerce. The Hamburg Chamber of Commerce also honoured a total of 64 young talents, including two...