Press Releases - Helmholtz-Zentrum Dresden-Rossendorf

Highspeed Internet, autonomous driving, the Internet of Things: data streams are proliferating at enormous speed. But classic radio technology is reaching its limits: the higher the data rate, the faster the signals need to be transmitted. Researchers at the Helmholtz-Zentrum Dresden-Rossendorf (HZDR) have now demonstrated (DOI: 10.1038/s42005-025-02273-0) that weak radio signals can be efficiently converted into significantly higher frequencies using this material that is just several tens of nanometers thick.

Als Marcus Stauch im Sommer 2022 seine Ausbildung zum Technischen Produktdesigner am HZDR begann, wusste er schon nach kurzer Zeit: Dieser Job ist genau der richtige für mich. Rund drei Jahre später wurde er nun von den Sächsischen Industrie- und Handelskammern (IHK) als „Bester Sächsischer Jungfacharbeiter 2025“ in seinem Beruf ausgezeichnet, zusammen mit 62 weiteren jahrgangsbesten Absolvent*innen aus ganz Sachsen. Seine Abschlussprüfung bestand er mit 96 von 100 möglichen Punkten – ein herausragendes Ergebnis.

Mining is a controversial topic: On the one hand, we need raw materials such as copper for the transition to climate-friendly technologies, but on the other hand, exploration and raw material extraction are primarily associated with environmental pollution and exploitation. A team of 18 European partners coordinated by the Helmholtz Institute Freiberg for Resource Technology (HIF) at the Helmholtz-Zentrum Dresden-Rossendorf (HZDR) has addressed this controversy in the VECTOR project, linking geosciences with data and social sciences. The results are efficient and low impact exploration methods and human-centered solutions that enable a responsible supply of critical raw materials in Europe.

The European Research Council (ERC) has awarded a Synergy Grant with a total budget of €14 million to four scientists: Daniel Bemmerer from Helmholtz-Zentrum Dresden-Rossendorf (HZDR; coordinating), Alba Formicola from Istituto Nazionale di Fisica Nucleare (INFN), Gianluca Imbriani from Università degli studi di Napoli Federico II, both in Italy, and Aldo Serenelli from Instituto de Ciencias del Espacio (ICE-CSIC) in Spain.

Die Helmholtz-Gemeinschaft hat beschlossen, die Innovationsplattform Hi-Acts (Helmholtz Innovation Platform for Accelerator-based Technologies and Solutions) dauerhaft fortzuführen. Nach der erfolgreichen Evaluierung durch ein unabhängiges, internationales Gremium wird das 2023 gestartete und zunächst für drei Jahre finanzierte Projekt nun also verstetigt und damit langfristig im Helmholtz-Portfolio verankert.

The Helmholtz-Zentrum Dresden-Rossendorf (HZDR) has achieved double success in the EU Regional Development Fund (ERDF) funding call “InfraProNet” conducted by the Saxon State Ministry for Science, Culture and Tourism (SMWK). With the two projects MagKI and Magnon4KI, the HZDR is further strengthening its leading position in magnetic AI research. Combined, the projects will receive around €3.75 million in funding from the EU and the Free State of Saxony. Their aim is to lay the groundwork for a novel and highly energy-efficient hardware platform for artificial intelligence – a technology designed to operate more sustainably than today’s AI systems.

Am Mittwoch, dem 26. November 2025, lädt das Helmholtz-Zentrum Dresden-Rossendorf (HZDR) zu einem besonderen Kulturabend ein: Die Dresdner Mitsingzentrale ist zu Gast und verwandelt den Großen Hörsaal des HZDR in eine Bühne für gemeinsames Singen. Das Konzert mit den Musikern Demian Kappenstein und Reentko Dirks beginnt um 18:30 Uhr. Im Vorfeld besteht die Möglichkeit, bei einer Führung die Großforschungsanlagen des Zentrums kennenzulernen. Die Teilnahme ist kostenfrei, eine Anmeldung notwendig.

With SAXFUSION, Saxony launches its first state-wide competence network for future technologies in nuclear fusion. The aim is to advance fusion as a clean, safe, and base-load capable energy source, to build strategic expertise, and to make the results available to industry and society. The EU and Free State of Saxony provide €2.4 million in funding for kick-starting SAXFUSION.

Scrutinizing data from 18 species from the cat family (felids) and 16 species from the dog family (canids), scientists discovered surprising differences between the two groups regarding their navigation styles in the wild. Wolves and foxes use travel routeways more often than bobcats, lions and leopards. The results of the largest comparative study of carnivore movement ecology ever conducted are published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Helmholtz Institute Freiberg for Resource Technology and Freiberger Compound Materials present cooperation in the semiconductor industry

The EU-funded HyLICAL project has reached a major milestone with the launch of Europe’s first magnetocaloric pilot plant for hydrogen liquefaction. Developed within HyLICAL by the Helmholtz-Zentrum Dresden-Rossendorf (HZDR) and start-up MAGNOTHERM, the demonstrator represents a breakthrough in sustainable, energy-efficient magnetic cooling and sets the stage for large-scale industrial application.

The international science conference “Building Bridges” has become an integral part of Dresden's conference calendar. This year, the conference, organized by the Helmholtz-Zentrum Dresden-Rossendorf (HZDR) on behalf of the Saxon State Chancellery, will take place from September 11 to 12 and will focus on the latest findings in the field of Artificial Intelligence. Around 300 scientists from Germany and Europe as well as leading representatives from politics and business are expected to attend.

A team of international researchers from the Helmholtz-Zentrum Dresden-Rossendorf (HZDR), Johns Hopkins University and Duke University has discovered that a century-old theory describing turbulence in fluids also applies to a very bubbly problem: how rising bubbles stir the water around them.

Our Sun is about five times less magnetically active than other sunlike stars – effectively a special case. The reason for this could reside in the planets in our solar system, say researchers at the Helmholtz-Zentrum Dresden-Rossendorf (HZDR). In the last ten years, they have developed a model that derives virtually all the Sun’s known activity cycles from the cyclical influence of the planets’ tidal forces.

Uranium is found in minerals in the soil, dissolves in mining water and ends up in the fields together with phosphate fertilizer. In Germany, the heavy metal uranium is particularly common in Saxony and Thuringia although it also occurs in Southern Germany. In cooperation with French researchers, experts from the Helmholtz-Zentrum Dresden-Rossendorf (HZDR) have now elucidated how uranium interacts chemically with diatoms.

Am 5. August 2025 beginnt für elf Auszubildende und einen dual Studierenden ein neuer Lebensabschnitt: der Einstieg ins Berufsleben am Helmholtz-Zentrum Dresden-Rossendorf (HZDR). Für die ersten Tage ist ein vielseitiges Einführungsprogramm geplant. Mit den zwölf „Neuen“ werden insgesamt 30 Auszubildende und sieben dual Studierende am HZDR beschäftigt sein.

Solar cells and computer chips need silicon layers that are as perfect as possible. Every imperfection in the crystalline structure of a silicon wafer increases the risk of reduced efficiency or defective switching processes. If you know how silicon atoms arrange themselves to form a crystal lattice on a thin surface, you gain fundamental insights into controlling crystal growth.

Solar energy can be used to generate electricity sustainably – and, in principle, it can also be harnessed to produce fundamental chemical compounds. However, the catalytic materials identified to date are not yet suitable for industrial-scale applications, as they often fail to meet critical criteria such as durability, efficiency, cost, and scalability.

In gleich zwei von sechs Forschungsbereichen konnten frühere Doktoranden des HZDR mit ihren Abschlussarbeiten die Jury des Helmholtz-Promotionspreises 2024 überzeugen. Dr. Stephan Hilpmann erhielt für seine Dissertation zur Endlagerung hochradioaktiver Abfälle die Auszeichnung im Bereich Energie. Auf dem Feld Materie hat Deutschlands größte Forschungsorganisation den Preis an Dr. Tim Ziegler für seine Doktorarbeit zu kompakten, laserbasierten Plasma-Beschleunigern verliehen. In den vergangenen drei Jahren ging damit insgesamt fünf Mal der Promotionspreis der Helmholtz-Gemeinschaft an das HZDR.

Die am HZDR geplante Dresden Advanced Light Infrastructure (DALI) hat einen wichtigen Meilenstein erreicht. Das Bundesministerium für Forschung, Technologie und Raumfahrt hat das Forschungsvorhaben auf die Shortlist der prioritären Forschungsinfrastrukturen in Deutschland gesetzt. Dies verkündete Bundesforschungsministerin Dorothee Bär auf einer Pressekonferenz am Dienstag, dem 8. Juli 2025, in Berlin. Damit gehört DALI zu den bundesweit besonders förderwürdigen wissenschaftlichen Großprojekten, die das Innovationspotential Deutschlands langfristig sichern und stärken sollen.

Natural crystals fascinate with their vibrant colors, their nearly flawless appearance and their manifold symmetrical forms. But researchers are interested in them for quite different reasons: among the countless minerals already known, they always discover some materials with unusual magnetic properties. One of these is atacamite, which exhibits magnetocaloric behavior at low temperatures – that is, the material’s temperature changes significantly when it is subjected to a magnetic field.

It can be found inside gas giants such as Jupiter and is briefly created during meteorite impacts or in laser fusion experiments: warm dense matter. This exotic state of matter combines features of solid, liquid and gaseous phases. Until now, simulating warm dense matter accurately has been considered a major challenge. An international team led by researchers from the Center for Advanced Systems Understanding (CASUS) at the Helmholtz-Zentrum Dresden-Rossendorf (HZDR) in Germany and Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) has succeeded in describing this state of matter much more accurately than before using a new computational method.

The OncoRay – National Center for Radiation Research in Oncology gets the world's first single-source photon-counting computer tomography (PCCT) system installed in a radiotherapy department. This system counts every single X-ray photon that passes through the patient, enabling the acquisition of more detailed images with more anatomical and functional information. The expected benefits of using PCCT technology in radiotherapy are now to be investigated and quantified in detail. This further highlights OncoRay's pioneering role in CT-based treatment planning for proton therapy.

A Danish-German research collaboration with participation of the Helmholtz-Zentrum Dresden-Rossendorf (HZDR) aims to develop new quantum light sources and technology for scalable quantum networks based on the rare-earth element erbium. The project EQUAL (Erbium-based silicon quantum light sources) is funded by the Innovation Fund Denmark with 40 million Danish crowns (about 5.3 million euros). It started in May of 2025 and will run for five years.

Elektrolyseure sind eine Schlüsseltechnologie für die Energiewende. Sie spalten Wasser in Wasser- und Sauerstoff auf, verbrauchen dabei aber bisher noch zu viel Strom. Eine Herausforderung ist, dass sich der anfangs gelöste Wasserstoff in Form von Gasblasen abscheidet, die die Elektrode abschotten können – auf Kosten der Effizienz. Ein deutsch-niederländisches Forschungsteam unter Leitung des Helmholtz-Zentrums Dresden-Rossendorf (HZDR) hat nun einzigartige Einblicke in das Innere der Wasserstoffblasen gewonnen und daraus neue Erkenntnisse für die Vorgänge im Elektrolyseur abgeleitet. Die Ergebnisse sind in der Fachzeitschrift Nature Communications (DOI: 10.1038/s41467-025-59762-7) veröffentlicht.

With the declared aim of measuring matter under extreme pressure, an international research collaboration headed by the University of Rostock and the Helmholtz-Zentrum Dresden-Rossendorf (HZDR) used the high-performance laser DIPOLE 100-X at the European XFEL for the first time in 2023. With spectacular results: In this initial experiment they managed to study liquid carbon – an unprecedented achievement as the researchers report in the journal Nature (DOI: 10.1038/s41586-025-09035-6).

In den Sommerferien verwandelt sich der Forschungscampus Rossendorf in einen Ort für junge Entdecker*innen. Beim „Summer of Science“ erwarten Kinder und Jugendliche abwechslungsreiche Kurse und Workshops rund um Naturwissenschaft und Technik. Das kostenfreie Angebot des Schülerlabors DeltaX am Helmholtz-Zentrum Dresden-Rossendorf (HZDR) findet über die gesamte Ferienzeit hinweg statt.

As industries seek innovative solutions for carbon capture, scientists have turned to advanced materials that efficiently trap and store carbon dioxide (CO₂) from industrial emissions. A recent study of a team from the Helmholtz-Zentrum Dresden-Rossendorf (HZDR), Dresden University of Technology (TUD), and Maria Curie-Skłodowska University in Lublin (Poland) sheds light on the gas adsorption physics of so-called Calgary Framework 20 (CALF-20), a zinc-based metal-organic framework (MOF).

Hydrogen plays a central role in the energy transition. The gas is mainly produced with the help of electrolysers. This process requires critical raw materials such as platinum group metals, rare earths or nickel as catalysts. Researchers at the Helmholtz Institute Freiberg for Resource Technology (HIF), an institute of the Helmholtz-Zentrum Dresden-Rossendorf (HZDR), have now been able to recover these functional materials using innovative flotation processes and liquid-liquid particle separation, thus returning them to the material cycle. The research is part of the H2Giga lead project of the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF), which is investigating the longevity and recyclability of hydrogen electrolysers.

Die Protonentherapie gilt als besonders präzise und gewebeschonende Methode zur Strahlentherapie von Hirntumoren. Doch gerade diese Präzision bringt auch Herausforderungen mit sich: Die biologische Wirksamkeit der Protonenstrahlen – also wie stark die Strahlung im Körper wirkt – kann je nach Beschaffenheit des Gewebes und Lage des Tumors variieren. Forscher*innen des Nationalen Zentrums für Strahlenforschung in der Onkologie – OncoRay, einer gemeinsamen Einrichtung des Helmholtz-Zentrums Dresden-Rossendorf (HZDR), der Medizinischen Fakultät der TU Dresden und des Dresdner Universitätsklinikums Carl Gustav Carus, ist es nun gelungen, die daraus resultierenden Nebenwirkungsrisiken besser abzuschätzen und durch neuartige Planungsverfahren deutlich zu senken. Ihre Ergebnisse veröffentlichten sie in der Fachzeitschrift Radiotherapy and Oncology.

Preparators grind and polish rock surfaces very carefully for microscopic examination of minerals and rocks. This preparation is key to the identification and characterization of mineral raw materials. The Helmholtz Institute Freiberg for Resource Technology (HIF), an institute of the Helmholtz-Zentrum Dresden-Rossendorf (HZDR), uses polishing machines from Struers GmbH for preparation. In order to polish an ideal surface, a sample holder was developed at the HIF. The two partner institutions currently present the holder for the first time at the leading European Geosciences Exhibition EGU in Vienna. Accordingly, HIF and Struers underline their five-year cooperation.

Researchers at the Helmholtz-Zentrum Dresden-Rossendorf (HZDR) have developed a concept for a self-sustained oxygen mask that uses the ability of microalgae to convert carbon dioxide into oxygen. This could form the basis for a portable microalgae-biomaterial hybrid device that enables prolonged oxygen supply and water absorption. With this concept, the HZDR team is one of the winners in a competition organized by the journal Nature Reviews Bioengineering. The task was to develop medical innovations for resource-limited regions.

Imagine navigating a virtual reality with contact lenses or operating your smartphone under water: This and more could soon be a reality thanks to innovative e-skins. A research team led by the HZDR has developed an electronic skin that detects and precisely tracks magnetic fields with a single global sensor. This artificial skin is not only light, transparent and permeable, but also mimics the interactions of real skin and the brain, as the team reports in the journal Nature Communications.

Am Samstag, dem 23. August 2025, öffnet das HZDR seine Türen und lädt alle Interessent*innen ein, einen Blick hinter die Kulissen der sächsischen Forschungseinrichtung zu werfen. Von 10 bis 16.30 Uhr können Besucher*innen bei zahlreichen Führungen durch wissenschaftliche Labore und Großgeräte die faszinierende Forschung am HZDR entdecken und mit Wissenschaftler*innen aus aller Welt ins Gespräch kommen. Sowohl große als auch kleine Forschungs-Fans erwartet ein erlebnisreicher Tag zum Erkunden, Staunen und Mitmachen.

The ability to conduct heat is one of the most fundamental properties of matter, crucial for engineering applications. Scientists know well how conventional materials, such as metals and insulators, conduct heat. However, things are not as straightforward under extreme conditions such as temperatures close to absolute zero combined with strong magnetic fields, where strange quantum effects begin to dominate. This is particularly true in the realm of quantum materials. Researchers from the Helmholtz-Zentrum Dresden-Rossendorf (HZDR), University of Bonn, and Centre national de la recherche scientifique (CNRS) now exposed the semimetal zirconium pentatelluride (ZrTe₅) to high magnetic fields and very low temperatures.

Today, a single modern hard drive can store several million megabytes – providing enough storage for hundreds of thousands of photos. These multi-terabyte hard drives rely on tiny magnetic structures. However, with data rates of only a few hundred megabytes per second, access to this digital information remains relatively slow. Initial experiments have already shown a promising new strategy: Magnetic states can be read out by short current pulses, whereby recently discovered spintronic effects in purpose-built material systems could remove previous speed restrictions.

A team of researchers from Nottingham Trent University (UK), Helmholtz-Zentrum Dresden-Rossendorf (HZDR) and Free University of Bozen-Bolzano (Italy) has created washable and durable magnetic field sensing electronic textiles – thought to be the first of their kind – which they say paves the way to transform use in clothing.

Flotation is one of the most important processes for separating minerals in the raw materials industry. Achieving the highest possible mineral enrichment requires the appropriate selection and dosage of reagents - a complex, time-consuming and cost-intensive procedure. Researchers at the Helmholtz Institute Freiberg for Resource Technology (HIF), which is part of the Helmholtz-Zentrum Dresden-Rossendorf, have developed a workflow for the economic and ecological optimization and upscaling of flotation reagents. Initial tests on an industrial scale have shown a significant increase in the concentration of valuable minerals and confirmed the effectiveness of the developed approach.

Quantitative phase imaging (QPI) is a microscopy technique widely used to investigate cells and tissues. Even though first biomedical applications based on QPI have been developed, both acquisition speed and image quality need to improve to guarantee a widespread reception.

Cadmium selenide nanoplatelets provide a promising foundation for the development of innovative electronic materials. Since the turn of the millennium, researchers around the world have taken a particular interest in these tiny platelets, which are only a few atoms thick, as they offer extraordinary optical and other properties. A team from the Helmholtz-Zentrum Dresden-Rossendorf (HZDR), TU Dresden, and the Leibniz Institute for Solid State and Materials Research Dresden (IFW) has taken an important step towards the systematic production of such nanoplatelets.

The German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) funds research into controlled quantum states of individual or coupled systems with its ongoing emerging talent program “Quantum Future”. Among the first selected projects, which kicked off in January 2025, is “qHPC-GREEN”, proposed by junior research group leader Dr. Werner Dobrautz, who began building his research team at the Center for Advanced Systems Understanding (CASUS), an institute of Helmholtz-Zentrum Dresden-Rossendorf (HZDR), only in late 2024.

Beryllium-10, a rare radioactive isotope produced by cosmic rays in the atmosphere, provides valuable insights into the Earth's geological history. A research team from the Helmholtz-Zentrum Dresden-Rossendorf (HZDR), in collaboration with the TUD Dresden University of Technology and the Australian National University (ANU), has discovered an unexpected accumulation of this isotope in samples taken from the Pacific seabed. Such an anomaly may be attributed to shifts in ocean currents or astrophysical events that occurred approximately 10 million years ago. The findings hold the potential to serve as a global time marker, representing a promising advancement in the dating of geological archives spanning millions of years. The team presents its results in the scientific journal Nature Communications (DOI: 10.1038/s41467-024-55662-4).

The growing demand for raw materials makes mining unavoidable. The exploration of deposits increasingly relies on more environmentally friendly methods. In the European DeepBEAT project, scientists at the Helmholtz Institute Freiberg for Resource Technology (HIF), an institute of the Helmholtz-Zentrum Dresden-Rossendorf (HZDR), are pursuing the approach of using geochemical analyses to detect deep-seated ore deposits in a non-invasive manner. The researchers are testing the methods in three areas in Germany, the Czech Republic and Finland. The integrative involvement of all participants is an essential part of the project in order to improve mutual understanding in exploration projects. The EU is funding the three-year project with five million euros.

The cement industry is one of the largest producers of carbon dioxide. It is responsible for up to eight percent of global man-made emissions – almost three times as much as the global air traffic. To reduce this share and become climate-neutral, the industry is relying on technological innovations. The international project “ECem”, in which scientists from the Helmholtz Center Dresden-Rossendorf (HZDR) are also involved, is pursuing a promising approach. With the help of electric heating technologies for the energy-intensive process of calcination, the partners from science and industry want to drastically reduce CO₂ emissions in cement production. The project started in the fall of 2024 and will run for three and a half years. It is funded by the Danish Innovation Fund with 21 million Danish crowns (about 2.8 million euros).

Am Helmholtz-Institut Freiberg für Ressourcentechnologie (HIF) des HZDR stellt sich die Nachwuchsforschungsgruppe Pep2Rec der Herausforderung, Palladium-haltige Katalysatoren wiederzugewinnen. Unter der Leitung von Dr. Nora Schönberger entwickelt die Gruppe ein auf Peptide gestütztes, vollständig biologisches Trennsystem, das den kritischen Rohstoff auf speziellen Membranen immobilisiert.

In late 2024, the XR (eXtended Reality) microscopy project received 100,000 euros by the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) via the GO-Bio initial funding program. The project aims to develop software that allows images from fluorescence microscopes to be brought into virtual reality (VR) as well as human actions within the VR world to be fed back into the microscopy system. The BMBF's funding underscores the innovative potential of this new method, which provides a range of possibilities for application in basic and applied research. Developed at the Center for Advanced Systems Understanding (CASUS), an institute of the Helmholtz-Zentrum Dresden-Rossendorf (HZDR), the project emerged victorious in HZDR’s 7th Innovation Contest last year and has since been registered for a patent.

Am heutigen Donnerstag, dem 16. Januar 2025, beschließen deutschlandweit und international führende Akteure der Radiopharmazie aus Sachsen eine verstärkte Zusammenarbeit. Ziel der Partner aus den Bereichen Forschung, Wirtschaft und Clustermanagement ist, die Radiopharmazie in Sachsen zum Zentrum für Innovation und Fachkompetenz in diesem zukunftsweisenden Bereich auszubauen und so auch international sichtbarer zu machen.

Is permanent storage the only strategy for dealing with nuclear waste? No, says Prof. Kristina Kvashnina of the Helmholtz-Zentrum-Dresden-Rossendorf (HZDR). With the aid of new EU funding, she wants to investigate the options for recycling some elements of nuclear waste using novel separation techniques – because old nuclear fuels contain important raw materials, not just for nuclear energy.

The EQUSPACE consortium (Enabling New Quantum Frontiers with Spin Acoustics in Silicon) has received 3.2 million euros from the European Innovation Council's (EIC) Pathfinder Open funding program to advance the development of silicon-based quantum technologies.

Der Senat der Helmholtz-Gemeinschaft hat Prof. Sebastian M. Schmidt zum Vizepräsidenten für den Forschungsbereich Materie gewählt. Der Wissenschaftliche Direktor des Helmholtz-Zentrums Dresden-Rossendorf (HZDR) ist somit seit 1. Januar 2025 Mitglied des Präsidiums, das acht Vizepräsident*innen, den Präsidenten und die Geschäftsführerin umfasst. Aufgabe dieses Leitungsgremiums ist es, den Präsidenten zu beraten und zu vertreten. Schmidt will in seiner neuen Funktion vor allem die anwendungsorientierte Grundlagenforschung an komplexen Infrastrukturen weiter voranbringen und die Zusammenarbeit mit anderen Forschungsgebieten fördern. Die Amtszeit beträgt zunächst zwei Jahre.