Virtual tours: Experience the HZB in 360 degrees!
Unfortunately, due to Corona, we are currently unable to receive groups of visitors at HZB and guide them through our centre. Despite Corona, we would like to provide you with insights into HZB. Simply follow our 360-degree tours and experience how we conduct research at the BESSY II accelerator. Further tours are being planned.
"Make yourself comfortable and start your own virtual tour through our world of research! We invite you to move through the 360-degree worlds and pause at one station or another to discover something new," says Sandra Fischer from the Communications Department. She designed and realised the tours together with an external partner.
The first tour is through the BESSY II accelerator facility. Further tours, also at the Wannsee site, are being planned. "With this offer, we want to remain open to interested people even in times of a pandemic and arouse curiosity about the world of science."
Tour through the BESSY II accelerator: Follow the path of light
Have you always wanted to walk through an accelerator? The tours "The Path of Light" and "The Experiment" both start in the heart of BESSY II, the control room. Go to the place where electrons race through and emit light at almost the speed of light - the storage ring tunnel. There you will see the effort that has to be made to generate the coveted light. You can experience all the things we can explore with this light in the tour "The Experiment".
Here you get to the tour. We hope you enjoy it!
Note for our cooperation partners at BESSY II:
360-degree views ("spherical panoramas") of various beamlines are available in the media library. You are welcome to use these to explain your work at BESSY II (e.g. in lectures or for groups of visitors). If you have any questions, please contact Sandra Fischer.
- Battery research with the HZB X-ray microscopeNew cathode materials are being developed to further increase the capacity of lithium batteries. Multilayer lithium-rich transition metal oxides (LRTMOs) offer particularly high energy density. However, their capacity decreases with each charging cycle due to structural and chemical changes. Using X-ray methods at BESSY II, teams from several Chinese research institutions have now investigated these changes for the first time with highest precision: at the unique X-ray microscope, they were able to observe morphological and structural developments on the nanometre scale and also clarify chemical changes.
- BESSY II: New procedure for better thermoplasticsBio-based thermoplastics are produced from renewable organic materials and can be recycled after use. Their resilience can be improved by blending bio-based thermoplastics with other thermoplastics. However, the interface between the materials in these blends sometimes requires enhancement to achieve optimal properties. A team from the Eindhoven University of Technology in the Netherlands has now investigated at BESSY II how a new process enables thermoplastic blends with a high interfacial strength to be made from two base materials: Images taken at the new nano station of the IRIS beamline showed that nanocrystalline layers form during the process, which increase material performance.
- Hydrogen: Breakthrough in alkaline membrane electrolysersA team from the Technical University of Berlin, HZB, IMTEK (University of Freiburg) and Siemens Energy has developed a highly efficient alkaline membrane electrolyser that approaches the performance of established PEM electrolysers. What makes this achievement remarkable is the use of inexpensive nickel compounds for the anode catalyst, replacing costly and rare iridium. At BESSY II, the team was able to elucidate the catalytic processes in detail using operando measurements, and a theory team (USA, Singapore) provided a consistent molecular description. In Freiburg, prototype cells were built using a new coating process and tested in operation. The results have been published in the prestigious journal Nature Catalysis.