Physikalisch-Technische Bundesanstalt

PTB has been characterizing optical components and detectors in the VUV and EUV spectral ranges by means of synchrotron radiation for a long time. To date, there had been, however, no possibility of performing measurements in the wavelength range from 30 nm to 40 nm. This spectral range is important, for example, to study in space the physical properties of the sun. One of the objectives with the new EUV beamline at the Metrology Light Source was therefore ...

The national metrology institutes prepare intensively for the redefinition of the base units which is scheduled - from 2015 on – to be traced back to fundamental constants. For that purpose, recommendations for implementation - so called Mises en Pratiques - are elaborated and published. According to the planned redefinition of the Kelvin - the base unit for the temperature - temperature measurements will, in some temperature ranges, be carried out increasingly ...

The 'Innovation Award on Synchrotron Radiation 2011' was given to U. Kroth, M. Richter (PTB Berlin), K.Tiedtke, U. Jastrow, A. A. Sorokin (DESY Hamburg) and S.V. Bobashev (Joffe Physico-Technical Institute, St Petersburg). On 1 December 2011, they received the Innovation Award in Berlin for their contributions to the development and implementation of gas monitor detectors (GMDs) for free-electron laser (FEL) radiation applications ...

In the past three years, the European iMERA-Plus research project "Candela: Towards quantum-based photon standards" (http://www.quantumcandela.org) has been focused on the further development of both, the classical radiometry and the radiometry of a few photons and the linkage of both. For this purpose, a calculable, high-efficiency radiation detector was developed on the basis of special silicon photodiodes (Predictable Quantum Efficient Detector – PQED). In this ...

In early October, the European Space Agency ESA decided – within the scope of its Cosmic-Vision plan – to launch the Solar Orbiter mission into space in 2017. PTB will contribute to the characterisation of two instruments this spacecraft has on board – the spectrograph SPICE (Spectral Imaging of the Coronal Environment) for wavelengths between 48 nm and 105 nm, and the EUI (Extreme Ultraviolet Imager) for wavelengths ...