News from division 7

Innovative materials based on nanoscale and submicrometre particles are playing an increasingly important role in the development of new products across many fields. Applications range from battery electrodes to nanomedicine to quantum dots, which recently gained attention through the Nobel Prize in Chemistry 2023 which was awarded for their discovery and synthesis...

Metrology, fundamental research and applications in the spectral range of the extreme ultraviolet (EUV) and vacuum ultraviolet (VUV): For 40 years, PTB has been conducting research and measurements using synchrotron radiation as part of collaborations and services for science and industry. For the seventh time, PTB organised a workshop from 13 to 15 November 2023 under the umbrella of the...

A new beamline for radiometry in the vacuum ultraviolet spectral range (VUVR) was successfully commissioned at the Metrology Light Source (MLS). By quickly redirecting the radiation to three different measuring stations, the availability for different measuring tasks is significantly increased...

The current generation of industrial semiconductor manufacturing uses extreme ultraviolet (EUV) radiation at a wavelength of 13.5 nm. For more than 25 years, PTB has been offering high-precision measurements of the reflection properties of optical elements at this wavelength, and has thus been significantly involved in the technology development...

At the invitation of Division 7.5, the ISO Technical Committee (TC) 112 on Vacuum Technology met with its three working groups from 21-23 June 2023 at the Institute Berlin. The working groups deal with the topics of vacuum pumps, vacuum instrumentation and vacuum hardware.

A novel ultra-low field SQUID magnetometer was developed in cooperation with Helmholtz-Zentrum Berlin, Norwegian University of Science and Technology in Trondheim and Max Planck Institute for Structure and Dynamics in Matter in Hamburg.

The accurate dimensional and analytical characterization of aerosols - finely dispersed particles in gases such as air - is of increasing importance for environmental research, but also in industry. During the International Aerosol Conference (IAC 2022, https://iac2022.gr/) as well as the French Aerosol Conference...

Rudolf-Jaeckel-Preis 2023 for Dr. Karl Jousten

Whether for the realization of the low-temperature scale or for processes in the semiconductor industry: Many applications in physics and technology use vacuum technology, and especially the possibility to measure even the smallest pressures precisely and traceably. For his fundamental work in the field of vacuum pressure measurement, Dr. Karl...

Damit die PTB ihre Aufgaben im Bereich der Metrologie mit Synchrotronstrahlung wieder vollumfänglich erfüllen kann, hat das Helmholtz-Zentrum Berlin (HZB) bereits am 3. Juli den Betrieb von BESSY II exklusiv für die PTB wieder aufgenommen. 

On May 23, 2023 this year's QUNOM (Quantification of Uncertainties in Nano Optical Metrology) workshop welcomed participants from different European countries. It was hosted by the XUV group at the University of Twente and co-organized by Dr. Sebastian Heidenreich (PTB Working Group 8.43 Modelling and Simulation) and Dr. Victor Soltwisch (Working Group 7.14 EUV Nanometrology).

The Friends of Helmholtz-Zentrum Berlin (HZB) have awarded the Ernst-Eckhard-Koch-Prize 2022/23 to the outstanding PhD thesis of Dr. Xiujie Deng from Tsinghua University in Beijing.

Calculating the uncertainty of a flow simulation

PTBnews 2.2023

The geometry of periodic nanostructures can be reconstructed non-destructively from combined X-ray scattering and fluorescence measurement data. For the application of this new hybrid technique using synchrotron radiation, a compact measurement chamber was developed and put into operation at BESSY II.

The semiconductor industry needs metrology systems to characterize the dimensions of transistor structures in the nanometer range in a fast, non-destructive, and metrologically reliable manner. A major challenge here is the limitation of the resolution of the measurement systems by the wavelength of the radiation used. Therefore, the use of short-wavelength extreme ultraviolet (EUV) radiation is...

The article "Calibration of the dual-mode auto-calibrating resistance thermometer with few-parts-per-million uncertainty" published in Measurement Science and Technology was awarded by IOP publishing with the "Outstanding Paper Award 2022" in the field of precision measurement. The paper by Dietmar Drung, Marco Kraus and Christian Krause describes the calibration method of PTB’s novel noise...

At the 'Process-near X-ray Analysis (PRORA) 2022' symposium, Karina Bzheumikhova, PhD student in the working group 7.24 X-ray spectrometry, was awarded the poster prize for the presentation of her work 'X-ray spectroscopy investigation of LiNi_xCo_yMn_1-x-yO₂ cathode materials: the final step to understanding pristine NMC cathode materials'.

At the international textile conference ADDITC 2022 held in Aachen in early December, the contribution "Thickness Gauging of Polymer Coatings on Knit Fabrics Using Fast Terahertz TDS" on the thickness measurements of polymer coatings on knitted fabrics by means of terahertz time-domain spectroscopy (TDS) was given the "Best Poster Award 2022".