Deutsches Elektronen-Synchrotron DESY

Welcome and shout out to Iris Wilhelm as new administrative DESY director. She started her new position on April 1st - no joke. The DESY colleagues had just the chance to get to know her better in an all hands meeting and especially her ideas for the administrative groups at DESY - indispensable for enabling excellent science.

A quarter century ago, DESY achieved a milestone in accelerator physics. Using their superconducting accelerator technology TESLA (no relation to the car company), a #team of DESY scientists and technical staff managed to generate free-electron laser light. The TESLA Test Facility had accomplished a major goal and five years later would accomplish X-ray lasing, evolving into DESY’s free-electron laser FLASH. FLASH itself was a forerunner to the ten-times-larger European XFEL. The first lasing is today being celebrated with a special colloquium, gathering the original team that accomplished this feat. While not all of the team members are still with us, their work still lives on with every light flash and experiment result at FLASH and European XFEL. Here’s to a team that did great things. Shown also in the images: the original logbook entry detailing that the first lasing, the celebration in the control room, the original internal announcement of the first lasing, several views of the control room and the TESLA test facility itself, and, of course, the team that made it all happen. #teamswork #collaboration

Since the invasion of Ukraine by Russia, the EU Programme EURIZON, of which DESY was an initiator and major contributor, has helped Ukrainian researchers in their homeland continue their work and foster connections in Europe. As the programme reaches its end, scientists, administrators, and officials gathered in Brussels to discuss next steps. Among the special guests: deputy director general for the European Commission’s directorate for research Signe Ratso and Grygorii Mozolevych of the Ukrainian Ministry of Education and Science.

For our German speakers, with English below: #zukunftstag bei DESY! In Hamburg waren 50 Kinder mit 14 Mitarbeiter:innen auf dem Campus. Sie waren im Schülerlabor, erkundeten die Lehrwerkstatt und fuhren tief unter die Erde in den HERA-Tunnel. In Zeuthen waren 48 Kinder mit 30 Mitarbeiter:innen aus 12 Abteilungen zusammen. Ein paar Worte von den Kindern: „Es gab viele verschiedene Einblicke in die Projekte. Es gab immer Offenheit für Kommunikation. Tolles Treffen mit den Forschern in der Mittagspause.“ „Ich möchte in der Weltraum- und Quantenphysik forschen!“ „Ich habe viel über Teilchenbeschleuniger gelernt und wie sie beschleunigen.“ „Die Vielfalt der Forschung und der Nationalitäten.“ Vielen Dank an alle! — The Girls' and Boys' Day (#zukunftstag) for many workplaces around Germany, DESY included! In Hamburg, 50 kids worked with 14 employees on campus. They worked in the school lab, checked out the apprentice workshop, and they went deep underground into the HERA tunnel. In Zeuthen, 48 kids worked with 30 employees across 12 departments. A few words from the kids (in German): "Lots of different insights into the projects. There was always openness for communication. Great meeting with researchers during the lunch break." "I want to do research on space and quantum physics!" "I learned a lot about particle accelerators and how they accelerate." "The diversity of research and nationalities." Thanks a lot to everyone!

Event Alert for Hamburg Based German Speakers: Bei dem nächsten DESY Science Café am Mittwoch, den 23.4. nimmt unsere Kollegin Simone Techert Wirkstoffe jeder Art unter die Lupe und zeigt, wie diese an Röntgenlichtquellen bei DESY untersucht werden. Es wird unterhaltsam.

For our German speakers – our new director reflects on DESY, her first day as its leader, and the handover ceremony from her predecessor.

Biomolecules can be either left-handed or right-handed, a phenomenon called chirality that has a strong influence on the development and effectiveness of #medicines and the prevention of infection, among many other applications. Some biomolecules inhabit a special quantum state of chirality where they are both left- and right-handed at once. A team of scientists at DESY led by lead scientist Melanie Schnell has succeeded in controlling which form these biomolecules can take, giving the scientists the chance to understand how handedness manifests and a step further towards being able to see why in life some molecules are predominantly of one form or the other. The results are published in Physical Review Letters. More information here: https://lnkd.in/ebASMc-J

TSCHÜSS HELMUT. MOIN BEATE.   Today DESY celebrated an important milestone: As of tomorrow Beate Heinemann will be the new Chairwoman of the DESY Directorate, following Helmut Dosch after 16 years who supposedly is retiring, but has a lot of plans to do anything but. Beate has a clear vision for DESY: “Every one of our research areas is already playing in the Champions League. Together they form a unique melting pot for multidisciplinary cutting-edge research and technology. Along with all the employees at DESY, I would like to further expand the centre’s scientific and innovative performance and make decisive contributions to science and society, in particular through our forward-looking project PETRA IV, the world’s best X-ray source.” Very much looking forward to this new chapter! Thank you to numerable partners and supporters for being present at the hand-over ceremony on the DESY campus in Hamburg, especially to Katharina Fegebank, Manja Schüle, Hauke Heekeren, and Volkmar Dietz from the Bundesministerium für Bildung und Forschung. A big shout out to Herwig Schopper, who is the 101 year old ex-ex-ex-ex Chairman of the DESY Directorate – he attended as well. More infos: https://lnkd.in/emZeCfDS Photos: Daniel Reinhardt

Time is running – about another month to register and submit your abstracts to the Helmholtz Imaging Conference 2025 in Potsdam!

Some solutions for the energy transition to mitigate climate change are to be found at the atomic level. By using advanced X-ray methods to study catalytic water splitting at the atomic level a research team at DESY is looking at ways to optimize materials like perovskites to produce hydrogen more efficiently — paving the way for cleaner energy solutions. At the same time, ultrafast electron microscopy allows for unprecedented insights into phase transitions in quantum materials, potentially leading to processors that are thousands of times faster and more energy-efficient. These insights could significantly accelerate the transition to renewable energy and drastically reduce global electricity consumption. More info: https://lnkd.in/er6vmY7N