2016

Scientists shrink electron gun to matchbox size

22 November 2016

In a multi-national effort, an interdisciplinary team of researchers from DESY and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) has built a new kind of electron gun that is just about the size of ... The new device uses laser generated terahertz radiation instead of the usual radio-frequency fields to accelerate electrons from rest. As the wavelength of the terahertz radiation is much shorter ...

Andrea Cavalleri elected AAAS Fellow

21 November 2016

Max Planck director Andrea Cavalleri of the MPSD at CFEL has been named a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. This year 391 members have been awarded this honor by ... The American Association for the Advancement of Science is the world’s largest general scientific society and publisher of the journal Science. AAAS was founded in 1848 and includes nearly 250 ...

Molecules change shape when wet

18 November 2016

In two recent publications in the Journal of Chemical Physics and in the

Watching chemical reactions at work using a tabletop laser and special-purpose detector

17 November 2016

A team of researchers from the Helmholtz Institute Jena and DESY has paved the way for using conventional lasers to observe chemical bonds being broken apart. For their experiments, the scientists ... What happens when a chemical bond is broken? How do individual atoms join to form a molecule, and disengage from each other again? Understanding the dynamics of chemical processes is often described ...

High-speed camera snaps bio-switch in action

14 November 2016

X-ray experiment opens new route to study biochemical reactions With a powerful X-ray camera, scientists have watched a genetic switch at work for the first time. The study led by Yun-Xing Wang ... The researchers studied a riboswitch from the bacterium Vibrio vulnificus, a close relative of the cholera germ. It can cause infections that are especially hard to treat and often fatal. The switch ...

Light-driven atomic rotations excite magnetic waves

Terahertz excitation of selected crystal vibrations leads to an effective magnetic field that drives coherent spin motion. Controlling functional properties by light is one of the grand goals in ... Spin control by ionic loops In an effort to generalize these principles and show that the coherent driving of phonons can not only affect the crystal structure but also directly control other ...

Medal of the Real Sociedad Española de Física for Angel Rubio

17 October 2016

Angel Rubio, Director of the Max Planck Institute for the Structure and Dynamics of Matter at CFEL in Hamburg, receives the 2016 Medal of the Real Sociedad Española de Física (Royal ... “The Jury wishes to highlight the awardee as a world leader in simulation of materials and as the creator of a software tool widely used by hundreds of research groups around the world, which ...

Florian Eich receives Marie Curie Individual Fellowship

11 October 2016

Supported by the European Commission the junior scientist will conduct a two-year research project on the theory of thermoelectric phenomena at the MPSD located at CFEL in Hamburg. The development ... In his project „Density-Functional Theory for Thermoelectric Phenomena” (ThermalDFT), Florian Eich wants to develop the theoretical tools to describe the efficiency of thermoelectric ...

ERC Starting Grant for Martin Eckstein

26 September 2016

Junior research group leader of the CFEL-based MPSD receives a €1.5 million Starting Grant of the European Research Council for his research on ultrafast dynamics in complex materials In his ... “It is a great honor for me that the ERC has decided to support my research so generously,” says Martin Eckstein. “The MPSD in Hamburg is an internationally renowned institution in ...

FEL Science and Applications Award for Kartik Ayyer

On 7th of September 2016, DESY physicist Kartik Ayyer from CFEL was awarded the “FEL Science and Applications award” of the international “Science@FELs 2016” conference which ... The award is given to young researchers on the occasion of the conference and comprises of a certificate, a monetary sum of 1500 Euros and the opportunity to give a presentation of the work at the ...

From Living Cells to Nanocrystals

The contracts have been signed at the end of June, from September on the bio lab XBI (Integrated Biology Infrastructure) at the European XFEL in Schenefeld will be equipped. An interdisciplinary team ... German partners include CUI scientists Prof. Martin Aepfelbacher (UKE), Prof. Henry Chapman, Prof. Franz X. Kärtner (both Universität Hamburg, DESY, CFEL) and Prof. Henning Tidow (Universität ...

Manipulating superconducting plasma waves with terahertz light

11 July 2016

Terahertz illumination amplifies Josephson plasma waves in high temperature superconductors, potentially paving the way for stabilizing fluctuating superconductivity July 11, 2016 Most systems ... Parametric amplification in simple oscillating systems, achieved by periodically modulating some specific parameter, is a well-understood phenomenon. For instance, a child on a swing increases its ...

Unexpected flexibility found in odorant molecules

04 July 2016

High resolution rotational spectroscopy reveals an unprecedented number of conformations of an odorant molecule – a new world record! In a recent publication in the current issue of

New Junior Research Group at the MPSD

04 July 2016

Michael Sentef receives funding for an Emmy Noether Group of the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft on theoretical solid state physics As part of the DFG’s Emmy Noether Programme, Michael ... Ultrafast materials science is a research area located at the boundary between condensed matter physics, which investigates the physics of many interacting particles, and ultrafast spectroscopy, ...

Innovative accelerator project produces first particle beam

28 June 2016

Milestone on the path to laser-driven plasma accelerators An innovative accelerator project at DESY has produced its first electron beam. The experimental facility goes by the name of LUX and is ... The physicists surrounding Maier are hoping to use this technology to accelerate particles to up to 1000 mega-electronvolts. “The technology is still in the very early stages of ...

Dr. Karl-Robert Brauns Prize for Ophthalmology 2016

16 June 2016

Joint research team of the Max Planck Institute for the Structure and Dynamics of Matter located at CFEL and the University Medical Center Hamburg-Eppendorf receives award for a recent work on laser ... In their publication “A New Technology for Applanation Free Corneal Trephination: The Picosecond Infrared Laser (PIRL)” the research team around Stephan J. Linke of the University Medical ...

Federal Ministry of Education and Research grants Two Million Euro for Researching Biomolecules

13 June 2016

Grant will position Hamburg as leader in time-resolved structural biology Universität Hamburg has been awarded two million Euro from the Federal Ministry of Research and Education (BMBF) for a ... In Hadamard crystallography, after the reaction has been triggered in a sample it is probed by a series of X-ray pulses. These pulses build up a single crystallographic image—a bit like a long ...

R. J. Dwayne Miller becomes Fellow of the Royal Society of Chemistry

09 June 2016

Max Planck Director from CFEL elected Fellow of one of the world’s most venerable chemistry communities In recognition of his significant contributions to the chemical sciences and in ... Femtosecond electron diffraction uses ultrabright electron sources to watch atomic motions with full structural details in real time. This technique allows obtaining atomic level movies of structural ...

Hamburg chemist wins prestigious Royal Society of Chemistry Prize

09 May 2016

Professor R. J. Dwayne Miller is the Royal Society of Chemistry Centenary Prize winner for 2016 Dwayne Miller is Director of the Atomically Resolved Dynamics Department of the Max Planck Institute for the Structure and Dynamics of Matter at CFEL in Hamburg, Germany, with a secondary appointment ...

Ultra-fast X-ray Lasers Illuminate Elusive Atomic Spins

09 May 2016

New X-ray technique reveals never-seen-before trillionth-of-a-second magnetic fluctuations A quick flash of light can make ordinary materials extraordinary, potentially inducing qualities such as ... “We developed a way to reveal light-induced femtosecond magnetic dynamics in as yet unseen detail,” said Mark Dean, a physicist at the Brookhaven National Laboratory in the USA and lead ...

High-speed camera snaps biosensor's rapid reaction to light

05 May 2016

X-ray study reveals ultrafast dynamics of photoactive yellow protein Using a high-speed X-ray camera, an international team of scientist including researchers from CFEL has revealed the ... The team lead by Marius Schmidt from the University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee used the LCLS X-ray laser at SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory in the U.S. to look at the light-sensitive part of a ...

How do small sugars bind to each other?

03 May 2016

Broadband rotational spectroscopy reveals the precise structure of the glycolaldehyde dimer In a recent publication in the the current issue of

Viewing a catalytic reaction in action

02 May 2016

An international team of researchers monitors the steps of a chemical reaction mediated by a metallic surface To be able to follow and directly visualize how the structure of molecules changes ... Chemical transformations at the interface between solid/liquid or solid/gaseous phases of matter lie at the heart of key industrial-scale manufacturing processes. Understanding the microscopic ...

Molecular dynamics made visible through mathematics

03 May 2016

New algorithm improves temporal resolution of X-ray lasers by a factor of 300 A clever algorithm allows scientists to capture the ultra-fast movements of molecules and other dynamic processes ... Twelve Million Dimensions “This temporal uncertainty is a curse in many areas of science,” says Ourmazd. “You have lots of data, but no accurate time stamps.” Yet, in order ...

First X-ray laser simulation suite explores single-particle imaging

25 April 2016

Virtual X-ray laser developed to more efficiently define how structural biology’s “Holy Grail” method could work Imagine taking an atomic-resolution X-ray picture of any ... “What we’ve done is put together a comprehensive simulation pipeline, which simulates each step of a hypothetical single-particle imaging experiment, from source right through to ...

ERC Advanced Grant for Angel Rubio

14 April 2016

Max Planck director from Hamburg receives EU funding of €2.5 million for basic research in theoretical chemistry The European Research Council (ERC) has announced today the list of the 277 top researchers to be awarded with one of its prestigious Advanced Grants. In the current call, the European Union ...

Unraveling a truly one-dimensional carbon solid

04 April 2016

Researchers present a direct first proof of stable ultra-long 1D carbon chains, thus paving the way for the bulk production of carbyne Elemental carbon appears in many different modifications, ... So far, the record has been a chain made of around 100 carbon atoms (2003). This record has now been broken by more than a factor 50 with the first-time demonstration of micrometer length-scale ...

New method opens crystal clear views of biomolecules

10 February 2016

Fundamental discovery triggers paradigm shift in crystallography A scientific breakthrough gives researchers access to the blueprint of thousands of molecules of great relevance to medicine and ... To determine the spatial structure of a biomolecule, scientists mainly rely on a technique called crystallography. The new work offers a direct route to “read” the atomic structure of ...

Superconductivity: footballs with no resistance

09 February 2016

Indications of light-induced lossless electricity transmission in fullerenes contribute to the search for superconducting materials for practical applications Superconductors have long been ... All hopes for superconductivity at room temperature have been riding on ceramic materials known as cuprates. These materials lose their electrical resistance at relatively high temperatures, which ...

Scientists film exploding nanoparticles

05 February 2016

Imaging nanoscale dynamics with unparalleled detail and speed. Using a super X-ray microscope, an international research team has “filmed” the explosion of single nanoparticles. The ... CFEL Publications

Invitation to the Matthiae-Mahl

03 February 2016

Great honor for scientist Prof. Henry Chapman (Universität Hamburg, DESY): The highly valued scientist at CFEL has been invited to the Matthiae-Mahl on 12 February in the large ballroom of ... Further information about the Matthiae-Mahl 2016 (in German)