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News Archive 2017

Division 7

In the second week of October, the first Autumn School of the European X-ray Spectrometry Association (EXSA) coorganized by EXSA, PTB and TU Berlin took place in combination with a workshop and a meeting of the Fundamental Parameter Initiative. About 75 participants 25 students among them discussed on Quantitative Methods in X-ray Spectrometry.

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The bi-annual "VUV and EUV Metrology" event took place on 19 and 20 October 2017 for the fourth time; it was organized at the Hermann von Helmholtz building within the scope of the 304th PTB Seminar. With more than 35 presentations and posters, the wide range of topics addressed spanned from the industrial application of EUV radiation to the manufacturing of semiconductor structures, to the...

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At PTB's laboratory at the BESSY II electron storage ring in Berlin-Adlershof, proof has been furnished that even measuring fields with a size of a few micrometers can be characterized by means of small-angle X-ray scattering in a reflection geometry under grazing incidence. The signal overlap problem, which is due to the fact that the incident beam also illuminates the area surrounding the...

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At PTB, the unit of temperature is disseminated in about 50 % of all cases by calibrating noble metal thermocouples against fixed points of the International Temperature Scale of 1990 (ITS-90) in the temperature range between 0 °C and 1600 °C. To this end, the phase transitions between the solid and the liquid state (melt) or between the liquid and the solid state (freeze) of pure metals, which...

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Solar Orbiter is a spacecraft of the European Space Agency (ESA) which is intended to orbit the Sun for seven years and to provide scientific insights into solar and heliospheric physics. This mission is scheduled to start in October 2018. Its main objective is to observe the so-called space weather, i.e. processes taking place in the solar corona which, due to particle radiation (the "solar...

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At present, the kelvin is literally based on no more than water – on the triple point of water, to be more precise. The base unit of temperature is therefore dependent on a material whose properties may vary. But this is about to change: In the fall of 2018, the kelvin, as well as all the other units of the International System of Units (SI), will be redefined to rest on a solid and invariable...

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PTB has been developing highly sensitive SQUID-based (Superconducting QUantum Interference Device) current sensors for a range of precision measurement applications. Recently, PTB's SQUID current sensors in combination with superconducting microcalorimeters have been used successfully to characterize novel single-photon emitters and microlasers for quantum optics.

 

 

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The AMA Association for Sensors and Measurement announced in a press release on 16 March 2017 that they had nominated five submissions for the AMA Innovation Award 2017. This year, the Young Enterprise special award was bestowed on SLT Sensor- und Lasertechnik GmbH in Wildau, Germany and representatives of the Berlin Institute of the Physikalisch-Technische Bundesanstalt (PTB). They jointly...

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Dr. Jan Wernecke 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 with the 2016 Ernst Eckhard Koch Prize of the Association of Friends of Helmholtz-Zentrum Berlin. His doctoral studies were carried out in the X-ray Radiometry group at the electron storage ring...

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