Members of the Berlin House of Representatives (Abgeordnetenhaus) visit Helmholtz-Zentrum Berlin
© HZB/Stefanie Kodalle
On 17 June 2019, representatives of the Committee for Science and Research of the Berlin House of Representatives met with the management and scientists of the Helmholtz-Zentrum Berlin (HZB). During their two-hour visit, they visited energy research laboratories and discussed the campus's prospects for the site after the final shutdown of the BER II research reactor.
Stefan Förster: “HZB is one of the beacons for cutting-edge research in Berlin”
On his visit, Stefan Förster, representative of the FDP faction in the Berlin House of Representatives and member of the Committee of Science and Research, emphasized: “Ten years of HZB and the imminent restructuring and further profiling of the campuses were occasion enough for the Committee of Science and Research to take a closer look at the Wannsee campus and to inform ourselves of the current plans and ongoing projects. We were impressed when saw that there are highly motivated and qualified employees at HZB working on many topics of the future and that the campus will have a good future even after the shutdown of the research reactor BER II. HZB is one of the beacons in the field of cutting-edge research in Berlin, and is an indispensable part of our scientific landscape.”
Rech: “The Wannsee campus has excellent prospects, in particular for the development of new energy technologies.”
The Scientific Director of HZB and spokesman for HZB Management, Prof. Dr. Bernd Rech, adds: “We were delighted by the visit from members and employees of the House of Representatives to our research centre today, which is one of the world’s leading institutions for energy and material research. During the talks, we made it clear that the Wannsee campus will continue to have excellent prospects even after the shutdown of BER II – in particular for the development of new energy technologies. Berlin is an outstanding location for research and innovation. In the capital region, there are many interdisciplinary networks in which we are involved and which mutually enrich each other.”
The members of parliament visited, among other things, the experimental halls around the research reactor BER II, laboratories for solar hydrogen production, and the CoreLab “Correlative Microscopy and Spectroscopy”, in which novel and in some cases unique ZEISS microscopes are available for users from research and industry. A visit of the HZB campus in Adlershof is also planned, with a tour of the electron storage ring BESSY II.
- Neutron experiment at BER II reveals new spin phase in quantum materialsNew states of order can arise in quantum magnetic materials under magnetic fields. An international team has now gained new insights into these special states of matter through experiments at the Berlin neutron source BER II and its High-Field Magnet. BER II served science until the end of 2019 and has since been shut down. Results from data at BER II are still being published.
- Fractons as information storage: Not yet quite tangible, but closeA new quasiparticle with interesting properties has appeared in solid-state physics - but so far only in the theoretical modelling of solids with certain magnetic properties. An international team from HZB and Freie Universität Berlin has now shown that, contrary to expectations, quantum fluctuations do not make the quasiparticle appear more clearly, but rather blur its signature.
- Solid-State Lithium-Sulfur Batteries: Neutrons unveil sluggish charge transportSolid-state Lithium-Sulfur batteries offer the potential for much higher energy densities and increased safety, compared to conventional lithium-ion batteries. However, the performance of solid-state batteries is currently lacking, with slow charging and discharging being one of the primary causes. Now, a new study from HZB shows that sluggish lithium ion transport within a composite cathode is the cause of this slow charging and discharging.