Physikalisch-Technische Bundesanstalt

The ‘2011 Norman Hackerman Young Author Award’ of the Electrochemical Society (ECS) was given to C. Fleischmann, S. Couet (both KU Leuven, Belgium), P. Hönicke (PTB Berlin) and K. Schouteden (IMEC, Belgium). Their publication in the Journal of The Electrochemical Society on "Towards Passivation of Ge(100) surfaces by Sulfur Adsorption from a (NH4)2S Solution: A Combined NEXAFS, STM and LEED Study" was awarded at the ...

In cooperation with PTB, the Swiss company Dectris has developed a vacuum-compatible version of the "Pilatus" hybrid pixel detector for X-rays. This device now allows, for example, experiments for the size determination of nanoparticles to be carried out with Small Angle X-ray Scattering (SAXS) also around the absorption edges of light elements like calcium, sulfur, phosphor or silicon at photon energies below 5 keV with high dynamics and good spatial resolution. This is ...

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 ...