Hamburg Center for Ultrafast Imaging (CUI) is Officially Excellent

Hamburg Center for Ultrafast Imaging (CUI) – Structure, Dynamics and Control of Matter at the Atomic Scale becomes officially a part of Germany's Federal Excellence Initiative 2012

On Friday, 15th June 2012, the physics and chemistry departments received confirmation that their proposal submitted under the federal cluster of excellence initiative was successful. This announcement is a tremendous accomplishment for the new research cluster "Hamburg Center for Ultrafast Imaging (CUI) – Structure, Dynamics and Control of Matter at the Atomic Scale (CUI)" and for Hamburg as a center for scientific excellence. The cluster will be funded with a total of 30 million euros over the next five years.

The Center for Ultrafast Imaging cluster focuses on the investigation of ultrafast physical and chemical structural changes occurring in matter. The research aims to gain new insights into the formation of molecular bonds from biological to medical relevant substances. Furthermore, it will look in more detail the dynamic processes in high temperature super conductors and gain more knowledge in the basic understanding of such fundamental problems. The cluster will utilize the unique research infrastructure of large scale facilities such as Petra III, FLASH and the new X-ray Free-Electron Laser located in Hamburg and will start operation in 2015.

The Hamburg Center for Ultrafast Imaging (CUI) cluster is formed by scientific leaders from the University of Hamburg Department of Chemistry and Physics, CFEL, DESY, MPG and the European X-FEL GmbH.

In addition to the research by the Center for Ultrafast Imaging (CUI), an international graduate school will be established introducing substantial new possibilities in education and research for students from University of Hamburg.

For additional information on the development of this cluster please visit http://www.cui.uni-hamburg.de