2018

Scientists from the Theory Department of the Max Planck Institute for the Structure and Dynamics of Matter (MPSD) at CFEL have shown through theoretical calculations and computer simulations that the ... The vacuum is not empty. It may sound like magic to laypeople but it has occupied physicists since the birth of quantum mechanics. The apparent void bubbles incessantly and produces fluctuations of ...

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A high-precision X-ray technique could catch cancer at an earlier stage and facilitate the development and control of pharmaceutical drugs. A test at DESY’s synchrotron radiation source PETRA ... The idea behind the procedure is simple: tiny nanoparticles of gold having a diameter of twelve nanometers (millionths of a millimeter) are functionalized with antibodies using biochemical methods. ...

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Exploring the mystery of the molecular handedness in nature, CFEL scientists have proposed a new experimental scheme to create custom-made mirror molecules for analysis. The technique can make ... Like your hands, many molecules in nature exist in two versions that are mirror images of each other. “For unknown reasons, life as we know it on Earth almost exclusively prefers left-handed ...

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Researchers from the MPSD's Department of Atomically Resolved Dynamics at CFEL, the Centre for Ultrafast Imaging (CUI), the University of Toronto in Canada and the ETH in Zurich, Switzerland, ... This method not only simplifies the experiment but accelerates it so much that many snapshots can now be recorded in a single experimental session. These can then be assembled into a time-lapse ...

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A team of scientists at DESY and University of Hamburg has reached another milestone towards the direct imaging of individual biomolecules: the group led by Jochen Küpper from CFEL developed a new ... Proteins are the workhorses of life. They regulate the functionality of living cells and are responsible, for example, for the reproduction of cells or the transport of oxygen. This wide-ranging ...

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CFEL researchers from the Theory Department of the MPSD  and researchers from the North Carolina State University in the US have demonstrated that the long-sought magnetic Weyl ... Electrons in free space are Dirac fermions, but in solids they can change their nature. In the atomically thin carbon material graphene they become massless Dirac fermions. In other recently ...

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A paper describing an innovative X-ray lens, manufactured by the team of CFEL group leader Saša Bajt, has won the Polish Synchrotron Radiation Society Award 2018 for the best peer-reviewed ... In contrast to conventional optics, multilayer Laue lenses (MLL) do not refract light but work by diffracting the incident X-rays in a way that concentrates the beam on a small spot. To achieve this, ...

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Tobias Kroh of the Ultrafast Optics and X-rays group at CFEL was awarded the Otto Stern prize of Universität Hamburg for the best master thesis in the physics department of winter semester ... During a research stay at Massachusetts Institute of Technology Kroh investigated theoretical forecasts for the generation of so-called Higher Harmonics by means of an infrared short-pulse laser ...

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Using corkscrew-shaped laser pulses, scientists at CFEL have devised a sophisticated optical centrifuge that can make molecules rotate rapidly about a desired molecular axis. The innovative method ... Optical centrifuges, built from rotating laser pulses, can make molecules spin faster than ten trillion times per second. These molecular superrotors have revealed unexpected behaviors and are ...

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In a way of “quantum boiling” with intense X-ray flashes, scientists have stripped xenon atoms of most of their electrons. The experiments reveal the impact of Albert Einstein's ... “Understanding atomic structure is fundamentally important,” explains Son. “Quantum mechanics tells us how electrons are placed in different atomic shells.” The atomic shell ...

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An international collaboration led by DESY and consisting of over 120 researchers has announced the results of the first scientific experiments at Europe's new X-ray laser European XFEL. The ... The 3.4 kilometers long European XFEL is designed to deliver X-ray flashes every 0.000 000 220 seconds (220 nanoseconds). To unravel the three-dimensional structure of a biomolecule, such as an ...

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CFEL scientists are very happy and proud that the Cluster of Excellence ‘Hamburg Center for Ultrafast Imaging’ (CUI) was again successful in the federal Excellence Strategy under the new ... Besides the CUI Cluster the University of Hamburg successfully applied with three other clusters in this year’s federal Excellence Strategy: Climate, Climatic Change, and Society ...

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For a novel X-ray lens with unprecedented properties, a research team headed by CFEL group leader Saša Bajt has been awarded the 'Microscopy Today Innovation Award' by the current ... The penetrating nature of hard X-rays and their short wavelengths below about 0.1 nanometers (millionths of a millimeter) make them attractive for imaging of objects such as biological cells at ...

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Water molecules exist in two different forms with almost identical physical properties. For the first time, researchers have now shown that these forms can exhibit different chemical reactivities. ... The research group headed by Stefan Willitsch from the University of Basel’s Department of Chemistry has investigated how the two forms of water differ in terms of their chemical reactivity ...

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Scientists have used a powerful X-ray laser to heat water from room temperature to 100,000 °C  in less than a tenth of a picosecond (millionth of a millionth of a second). The experimental ... “Our heating is fundamentally different”, explained Caleman. “The energetic X-rays punch electrons out of the water molecules, thereby destroying the balance of electric charges. ...

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A new experimental method permits the X-ray analysis of amyloids, a class of large, filamentous biomolecules which are an important hallmark of diseases such as Alzheimer’s and ... Amyloids are long, ordered strands of proteins which consist of thousands of identical subunits. While amyloids are believed to play a major role in the development of neurodegenerative diseases, ...

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CFEL’s leading scientist Andrea Cavalleri, the founding director of the Max Planck Institute for the Structure and Dynamics of Matter and a Professor of Physics at Oxford University, has ... Cavalleri is internationally recognized for his experimental work in the non-equilibrium dynamics of complex solids, and is being elected to EURASC for his work in which electromagnetic ...

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A team of scientists of the Max Planck Institute for the Structure and Dynamics of Matter (MPSD) at CFEL investigated optically-induced superconductivity in the alkali-doped fulleride ... The paper by Cantaluppi et al has been published in the current issue of Nature Physics.

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A concept for a novel X-ray microscope promises three-dimensional images of delicate objects like biological cells using a thousand times less damaging radiation than conventional methods. The novel ... Imaging the structures of biological cells on the nanometer scale usually requires X-rays, as their short wavelengths allow to resolve the fine details. “However, X-rays also deposit energy ...

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CFEL scientists at DESY have created a miniature particle accelerator for electrons that can perform four different functions at the push of a button. The experimental device measuring just a few ... This way, the scientists can control with ultra-high precision, what part of the Terahertz wave an electron bunch hits when it enters the device. Depending on the arrival time of the electron bunch, ...

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Andreas Maier from CFEL is an accelerator physicist at the University of Hamburg and is in charge of the LUX facility at the DESY site for researching the new technology of plasma acceleration in the ... Maier received the Young Scientists Prize “in recognition of his outstanding scientific achievements during his doctoral research and initial research phase, in developing laser-driven ...

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CFEL researchers led by Andrea Cavalleri have demonstrated a new method enabling precise measurements of the interatomic forces that hold crystalline solids together. The paper Probing the ... In a recent study by the MPSD group led by Andrea Cavalleri, ultrashort laser flashes at mid-infrared frequencies were used to move atoms far away from their equilibrium arrangement. By measuring how ...

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Understanding high temperature superconductivity (high Tc) has been a long-standing challenge since its discovery in copper oxide compounds in 1986. A key issue in addressing this problem has ... Rajasekaran and coworkers used new terahertz techniques to detect this striped superconductivity above the superconducting transition temperature in cuprates. It occurs because the fluid carrying ...

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What enables electrons to be transferred swiftly, for example during photosynthesis? An interdisciplinary team of researchers has worked out the details of how important bioinorganic electron ... The scientists had studied the pre-distorted, “entatic” state using a model system. An entatic state is the term used by chemists to refer to the configuration of a molecule in which the ...

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