Press releases 2013

In der Welt der Metrologie - der Wissenschaft vom exakten Messen - ist er die höchste europäische Auszeichnung: der mit 20 000 Euro dotierte Helmholtz-Preis. Mit ihm ehren der Helmholtz-Fonds und der Stifterverband für die Deutsche Wissenschaft alle zwei bis drei Jahre Wissenschaftler für Präzisionsmessungen in Physik, Chemie und Medizin. Bewerbungsschluss für den aktuell ausgeschriebenen...

Scientists would love to know which forces created our universe some 14 billion years ago. How could - due to a breaking of symmetry - matter, and thus stars and galaxies, be created from an originally symmetrical universe in which the same conditions prevailed everywhere shortly after the Big Bang. Now, the Big Bang is an experiment that cannot be repeated. But the principle of symmetry and ...

Extreme purity is a basic prerequisite in the production of semiconductors. The production of minuscule semiconductor components requires a cleanroom to minimize contamination from airborne particles and chemicals. In the past few years, improved technologies have already contributed considerably to reducing the problem of disturbing dust particles. The semiconducting components, however, are...

"Nano" ist überall: vom Deodorant über wasserabweisende Oberflächen bis hin zu harten und transparenten Lacken. Umso wichtiger, dass die Messgeräte, die bei der Produktion solcher winziger Teile eingesetzt werden, sorgfältig kalibriert sind. Die dafür notwendigen Referenzmaterialien produziert unter anderem das Institute for Reference Materials and Measurements (IRMM) der EU im belgischen Geel....

You can't see it, you can't smell it, you can't taste it – but at high doses, it can be lethal: the natural radioactive noble gas radon occurs especially in places where the subsoil consists of granite. It can, however, also occur in construction materials. It has been known for a long time that radon at high doses can cause lung cancer – numerous workers from the Wismut-Werke uranium mines...

Energie ist überall. Doch ein großer Teil der Energie, die uns im Alltag umgibt, geht verloren, weil sie in nicht weiter genutzte Formen umgewandelt wird – zum Beispiel in Wärme oder Bewegung. Aber auch diese Energie kann "geerntet" werden. Man spricht dabei von "Energy Harvesting". Beispiele sind Armbanduhren, die ihre Kraft aus den Handbewegungen des Trägers ziehen, oder Bodenplatten, die aus...

In microsystems, metallic components are increasingly replaced by components made of inexpensive polymers. As polymers yield when they are subjected to pressure, the layer thicknesses cannot be measured with sufficient accuracy by means of conventional contact stylus instruments. But precision is of decisive importance in microsystem technology. Here, the scientists of the ...

It looks like a completely normal fluid and yet it often behaves un-usually: an active fluid, consisting of a large amount of bacteria and water. This type of "bacterial fluid" flows under con-ditions where one ought to expect laminar flow; instead it is chaotic and characterized with vortices. Researchers of the Physikalisch-Technische Bundesanstalt (PTB) and of Cambridge University in ...

With their SQUIDs, low-temperature specialists of the Physikalisch-Technische Bundesanstalt (PTB) have made it possible for the magnetic moments of atoms of the rare isotope 3He (helium-3) to be measured with extreme sensitivity. With the aid of these sensors, highly sensitive nuclear resonance spectrometers were developed which have now provided deep insights into the state of matter at...