Prize Winners 2016

The Association of Friends of Helmholtz-Zentrum Berlin awarded during the Eighth Joint BER II and BESSY II User Meeting on 8 December 2016 the 26th Ernst Eckhard Koch Prize for outstanding doctoral theses in the field of research with synchrotron radiation.

The prize was shared this year:

Dr. Joachim Robert Gräfe from the Max Planck Institute for Intelligent Systems in Stuttgart was recognised for his doctoral dissertation “Statische und dynamische Magnetisierungseigenschaften nanoskaliger Überstrukturen” (static and dynamic magnetisation properties of nano-scale superlattices) at the University of Stuttgart. During his doctoral studies he was able to accomplish the first direct mapping and analysis of spin waves, also referred to as magnons, in nanoscale anti-dot lattices with the help of dynamic X-ray microscopy at GHz frequencies. The experiments took place at the BESSY II MAXYMUS microscope.

Dr. Jan Wernecke, who has since joined the IAV company in Gifhorn, was recognised for his doctorial dissertation “When Size Does Matter: Dimensional Metrology of Nanostructured Layers and Surfaces Using X-Rays” at the Technische Universität Berlin. His doctoral studies were carried out in the BESSY II laboratory of the the Physikalisch-Technische Bundesanstalt (PTB), Germany’s national metrology institute. The main task consisted of employing small-angle X-ray scattering for measuring nano-dimensional features on surfaces and thus establish standard metrological data traceable back to the international system of units SI with uncertainties in the range of a few atomic diameters.