New head of the PTB's Berlin Institute

Professor Dr. Günter Sauerbrey, for many years head of the PTB's Berlin Institute and head of the PTB Division of Medical Physics and Metrological Information Technology, retired at the end of January 1998.

The PTB's President, Professor Dr. Ernst O. Göbel, appointed Professor Dr. Burkhard Wende head of the PTB's Berlin Institute and Professor Dr. Herbert Rinneberg head of the Division of Medical Physics and Metrological Information Technology as from February 1, 1998. The Berlin Institute has a staff of about 400, and its sites are in Berlin-Charlottenburg and Berlin-Friedrichshagen.

Prof. Dr. Wende born in Berlin on January 2, 1937, joined the PTB in 1963. In 1974, he became head of the High Temperature and Vacuum Physics Group, and on August 1, 1995 he was appointed head of the Temperature and Synchrotron Radiation Division. Prof. Wende will continue heading this Division, in addition to performing his new duties as head of the PTB's Berlin Institute. Focal points of his scientific work are the fields of high-temperature physics, spectroscopy, radiometry and optical measuring techniques. At an early stage, Prof. Wende recognized which significance synchrotron radiation has for metrology. He spoke in support of the establishment of the Berlin electron storage ring for synchrotron radiation (BESSY), and by assuming various functions and cooperating in different bodies he has made decisive contributions to its being constructed for the purposes of fundamental research and industrial developments. He also essentially contributed to the decision to construct in Berlin-Adlershof the BESSY II storage ring which will be utilized also by PTB. Prof. Wende is honorary professor at Berlin Technical University and extraordinary professor at Karlsruhe University.

Prof. Dr. Rinneberg, born in Frankfurt/Main on July 6, 1939, joined the PTB in 1987 after many years of scientific work in the fields of nuclear solid-state physics and atomic physics. It is since that time that he has headed the Metrology in Medicine Department of the PTB's Berlin Institute. In this function, he has devoted himself to setting up the medical physics field of work, focal points being the development of laser-aided methods for application in medical diagnostics, high-field NMR tomography and in-vivo NMR spectroscopy. Prof. Rinneberg is extraordinary professor at Berlin's Free University.