News - FWIR
FWIR-Seminar:
Start after AMS XVI
When:
Where:
The FWIR-Seminar usually takes place 15:30 on Wednesdays in the room 613/157 at the campus of HZDR. The seminar is in public and we warmly welcome any interested guests. A hybrid seminar with a zoom-link can be organized. Do not hesitate to contact us!
Past invited talks:
17.07.24 Florian Adolphi (Alfred-Wegener Institut): Cosmogenic radionuclides in marine sediments as a global synchronization tool for paleoclimate archives
03.07.24 Franziska Rauscher (Jugend Forscht): The decay of Higgs-Bosons and the impact of λ4 on di-Higgs processes at the LHC
05.06.24 Stephan Heinitz (Belgian Nuclear Research Centre): Radium – a special element in Belgian nuclear history
27.03.24 Mojmir Nemec (CTU Prague): Nuclear chemistry and radioanalytics at the DNC CTU in Prague with a focus on AMS
20.03.24 Francesca Quinto (KIT): Radionuclide transport in crystalline host rock: insights from the in-situ experiments at the Grimsel Test Site (CH)
21.02.24 Lotta Ylä-Mella (Charles University, Prague): Cosmogenic nuclide burial dating with a new numerical tool
15.02.24 Michael Alscher (Alfred-Wegener Institut): From River Inflow to the Deep Arctic Ocean: Tracing the 10Be/9Be Signature Along the Siberian Shelf
06.02.24 Maximilian Lau (TU Bergakademie Freiberg): Welcome to the Anthropocene, or … almost
16.01.24 Lianqing Zhang (Uni Jena): The transition of erosion mode and a new method for erosion rate estimation
02.11.23 Rivoningo Khosa (iThemba Labs): The Vaal, Orange and Olifants: Quantifying the rates of evolution of the Southern African landscape, one river at a time
27.10.23 Julia Loftfield (Alfred-Wegener Institut): 10Be as synchronization tool in marine sediments
06.07.23 Florian Ritterbusch (Universität Heidelberg): Dating of groundwater, ocean water and glacier ice with noble gas radioisotopes
26.06.23 Jenny Feige (Museum für Naturkunde): Cosmic signatures in time-resolved records from the Atacama Desert, Chile
14.06.23 Katerina Fenclova (CTU Prague): Fluoride target material for 26Al measurements by Ion-Laser-InterAction Mass Spectrometry
17.05.23 Marie Piechotta (TU Dresden): Investigation of neutron-induced 𝛾 rays from Ge-nuclides in the region of interest of GERDA/LEGEND
22.02.23 Andreas Gärtner (Senckenberg): Ferromanganese crusts and nodules – from supernovae detectors to climate archives
Highlights of our group
Nature Paper about the oldest human settlement in EuropeThe oldest human settlement in Europe is located near the town of Korolevo in western Ukraine. New findings by an international team led by the Czech Academy of Sciences confirm that stone tools found in the lowest and therefore oldest excavation layer in Korolevo are 1.4 million years old. This was demonstrated by Johannes Lachner, Georg Rugel and Konstanze Stuebner and colleagues using 10Be and 26Al dating with AMS. |
New Standard References for AMSProf. Anton Wallner publishes two new standard references to the topics "Accelerator Mass Spectrometry" and "Radionuclides from Stellar Explosions" on the same day. The history of AMS, recent developments and the most exciting applications are described impressively by Walter Kutschera, Timothy Jull, Michael Paul and Anton Wallner. The search for interstellar radionuclides, the theory of their production and transport to Earth as well as their discoveries were comprehensively summarized by Brian Fields and Anton Wallner. |
Podcast to accelerator mass spectrometryIn the Resonator issue 191 in February 2023, Prof. Anton Wallner, head of the Accelerator Mass Spectrometry and Isotope Research department, provides a fascinating insight into the diversity of his work with accelerator mass spectrometry. It is used to detect long-lived radionuclides that are naturally or man-made and, based on isotope signatures, can contribute to a better understanding of our environment and its changes. |
HAMSTER on the run!We decided on February 8th, 2022: Our new 1-MV AMS system will become a hamster den! HAMSTER (Helmholtz Accelerator Mass Spectrometer Tracing Environmental Radionuclides) will be one of the most versatile AMS systems in the world with the proven Pelletron technology from NEC, the highly efficient design analogous to VEGA, ANSTO and the new type of laser isobar suppression. |
Trace elements of cosmic explosionsAn international research team led by Prof. Anton Wallner has found new evidence of a series of supernova events that have taken place relatively close to Earth over the past 10 million years. In the journal Science, they report on their meticulous search for two different isotopes that originate in the explosive end of massive stars. With this, the scientists add an important, previously missing building block to our understanding of the formation of elements. |
Stardust from the bottom of the ocean and AntarcticaSeveral thousand to tens of thousands of tons of cosmic dust trickle down to Earth every year. A mall part comes to us from distant stars. Analysis of deep-sea sediment samplesand 500 kg of Antarctic snow yielded the ollowing result: For at least 33,000 years, he Earth has ben wandering through a region of theinterstellar medium that is enriched with stardust from past star expls. Fresh ardust continues to fall to Earth today. |
Current:
27.10.2024: Rennhamster Team at Dresdner Marathon relay 2024
Once again this year, our Rennhamster team successfully took part at the Dresden Marathon as a relay team. Despite a changed line-up, Konstanze Stübner, Alexander Wieser, Klemens Kirsch and René Ziegenrücker, a good overall time of 4h 6 min 4s was achieved.
One challenge was the last-minute route change, which the organisers had to make to react to the collapse of the Carola Bridge. This also resulted in an adjustment of the lengths of the individual courses. At the same time new highlights arose, with the final section led past the Frauenkirche across the Neumarkt and then along the Fürstenzug.
A great achievement!
21.10.-25.10.2024 Several prizes at the AMS conference in Guilin, China
More than successful participation of our research group at the AMS-16 conference in Guilin China! With eight presentations and five posters, our working group was not only strongly represented, but was also able to convince the other participants of our research. Two of the contributions were honoured with prizes:
Poster prize:
Janis Wolf is investigating the spread of protactinium-231 in the environment, which is produced by the decay of naturally occurring uranium-235.
With her poster ‘Ultra-trace Analysis meets Radiochemistry: Studying the Behaviour of Pa-231 in the Environment’ Janis Wolf describes the first AMS measurements of Pa-231 from environmental samples in the course of this project.
Congratulations on this success!
Presentation prize:
Sebastian Zwickel is searching for traces of astrophysical events, such as a supernova (explosion of a star at the end of its life cycle), on the moon. One aim is to elucidate the formation of heavy elements such as plutionum.
In his lecture ‘Simultaneous Extraction of Cosmogenic and Interstellar Radionuclides from Lunar Soil’, Sebastian Zwickel explains a way of extracting 9 different radioactive elements simultaneously from a sample in a material-saving manner. Applied to 12 lunar samples from the Apollo missions, conclusions can then be drawn about their interaction with cosmic influences, e.g. radiation, meteorites, ....
Congratulations on this success!
15.10.2024: Jagadishwar Mahanty Prize 2024: Dominik Koll
A great honour for our Dominik. He wins the highly competitive Jagadishwar Mahanty Prize of the Research School of Physics at the Australian National University for ‘the most outstanding PhD thesis in the Research School of Physics’.
A great appreciation of his years of hard work and the great results achieved. GRATULATIONS!
27.09.2024: ALLIANCE Prize 2024: Janis Wolf
CONGRATULATIONS!
Our Janis has struck again. She wins this year's ALLIANCE Young Researchers Webinars First Prize for her presentation ‘How is Pa-231 Transported in the Environment? Insights from Radiochemistry to Ultra-trace Analysis’. A strong performance!
11.09.2024: HAMSTER PART 1 arrives at HZDR
We were delighted to receive the first delivery from NEC on 11 September 2024. The dedicated injector with NEC ion source, ESA and magnets was quickly set up and put into operation for the first ion cooler tests at ILTIS. We are overjoyed and can hardly wait for the delivery of Part 2!
18.07.2024: "Jugend Forscht" award winner Franziska Rauscher joins FWIR for an internship
We congratulate the "Jugend Forscht" award winner Franziska Rauscher on her success in the regional competition! Franziska impressed us with a great presentation on her research topic “The theoretical derivation of the decay of Higgs bosons”. During her three-week internship at the HZDR, she processed rock samples from the Tswaing crater in South Africa in our chemistry lab, and analysed them using accelerator mass spectrometry, thus contributing to the 10Be exposure dating of the crater.
Excellent work!
14.06.2024: Lange Nacht der Wissenschaften
A full week for our group. After the energy performance at the REWE Team Challenge, the Long Night of Science was on the programme two days later. Our first participation with experiments on exponential decay in radioactive decay, chromatography, water currents and more was a real success. Even the opening game of the European Championship did not dampen the enthusiasm and the stand was well attended until the end at midnight.
12.06.2024: REWE Team Challenge
Two motivated teams of four once again took part in the REWE Team Challenge 2024 as Rennhamster and Bremshamster. Short-term cancellations were routinely replaced and over the 5km, the Rennhamster team came out on top with a total time of 1:41:09 compared to the Bremshamster team with 1:51:27.
21.04.2024: Vienna City Marathon Triumph
On a trip to the Vienna City Marathon, the Rennhamster team once again took part in the team competition and completed the 42.195 km course from the UNO City via Schönbrunn and the Prater to the finale at the Burgtheater in 4 stages. In a friendly competition with the AMS team from the Viennese accelerator facility VERA, the Rennhamster team came out on top by a very narrow margin and even managed to improve their own record by a whole 2 seconds.
15.03.2024: Poster-Prize DPG Freiburg 2024
This years's poster prize of the MS division at the DPG conference in Freiburg goes to: Alexander Wieser!
CONGRATULATIONS!
08.03.2024: SPIN science festival - Science Slam
On Friday the 08.03.24 and Saturday the 09.03.24 the SPIN Science Festival will take place in Dresden. Dominik is at the start with a contribution to the Science Slam with the title: Wolkig mit Aussicht auf Sternenstaub. Come along for some exciting science.
06.03.2024: New Nature paper from us!
Johannes, Georg and Konstanze are co-authors of a spectacular new Nature paper with 10Be and 26Al dating of stone tools. See highlights.
CONGRATULATIONS on this great success, we are very proud of you!
08.11.2023: PhD Defence Dominik Koll
After more than 5 years, I finally got my PhD degree :-)
The best colleagues you could imagine designed a beautiful mortarboard.
I want to thank everybody who walked part of this way alongside me; without you, these years would have been less than half as enjoyable.
THANKS A LOT!
22.10.2023: Dresden Marathon
Our "Rennhamster" made a very good 10th place at the Dresden Marathon in the men's relay. Well done Sebastian, Alexander, Johannes und Renè Lutz!
19.09.2023: HZDR PhD Seminar Best Presentation: Dominik Koll
Dominik Koll received the Best Presentation Award in this years PhD Seminar of HZDR. His presentation: "Stardust on Earth and on the Moon" convinced a vast majority of the participating PhD student of HZDR. Well done!
29.09.2023: WIN Awardee 2023: Janis Wolf
CONGRATULATIONS!
Janis was awarded the Women in Nuclear prize 2023 for her excellent Master's Thesis about the "hot-topic": Study of Actinide Signatures as Potential Markers for the Anthropocenee. We are so proud of you!
25.09.2023: First guest in our new chemistry labs
Jenny Feige visited us for one week to process Atacama-soil samples for 10Be, 26Al, 53Mn and 60Fe. We are very happy to have her around and wish her all the best for future measurements.
28.07.2023: Summer Students and RISE-DAAD Student
A warm welcome to Leonie und Pranav! Both are summer students as HZDR and will help us with some actinide chemistry and the laser setup, rerspectively.
Thank you Matt! Matt came to us from Canada as a RISE-DAAD student. He took geological samples from the Erzgebirge and processed them in our chemistry labs.
13.07.2023: Visitor group from Senckenberg Gesellschaft
We are happy about the visit of the group of Prof. Ulf Linnemann from the Senckenberg Gesellschaft. We showed them the DREAMS facility and ideas for collaborations and projects were discussed. Since many years, projects in analytics and geology are carried out in a fruitful cooperation.
29.06.2023: Funding of Dark Matter Research
The ARC Centre of Excellence for Dark Matter Particle Physics (CDM) funds the project "Super-SIMS to characterize ultra-low 40K concentrations in NaI crystals" with 7500 AUD. Associate Investigator Dominik Koll and the group "Accelerator Mass Spectrometry and Isotope Research" of HZDR will characterize detector materials of the experiment SABRE for their 40K content together with the project partner Dr. Zuzana Slavkovska and the team of the Australian National University. The primordial radionuclide 40K is a major contributor to the background level of the detectors in the experiment and requires extensive chemical and physical separation techniques. The characterization of the detector materials is a prerequisite for the success of the experiment. HZDR contributes to the success of SABRE by the members of the CDM Prof. Anton Wallner and Domink Koll.
13.06.2023: Kinder-Universität
The Kinder-Universität took place at TU Dresden on the 13.06.2023. This time with Dominik Koll from HZDR with the topic "Glühwürmchen oder Kugeln aus Gas – Was sind Sterne?"
Kids (age 8-12) can register under: https://tu-dresden.de/kinder-uni/teilnehmen/aktuelles-programm
More than 400 kids were there and 150 joined online. Such a great event!
06.06.2023: Rewe Team Challenge
Our two teams "Rennhamster" and "Entspannte Rennhamster" aka "Bremshamster" participated in the Rewe Team Challenge. Our mixed-team ran to the first place of all HZDR mixed-teams. What an achievement!
11.03.2023: Earth Science Slam
What can interstellar dust tell us about times long gone by? Which stellar explosions has Earth flown through in the last million years of its history? Using latest modern research methods, stardust samples from Antarctic ice, from the deep sea or from the lunar surface can be analyzed. These are just some of the questions on which HZDR doctoral student Dominik Koll presented exciting findings from his doctoral thesis at the Earth Science Slam on Saturday, March 11, 2023. Under the dome of Dresden's Frauenkirche floated and turned a seven meter high, detailed image of the Earth. The impressive work of art "Gaia" shows visitors the beauty and at the same time the fragility of our planet.
Archive (from 2023)
Discovery of oldest permafrost in SiberiaAn international team has set a new record when determining the age of a permafrost layer in Siberia: believe it or not, the ground at the deepest point is at least 650,000 years old. However, the research results also show how sensitive the soil is to disturbances – and how quickly it can be destroyed. |
Exotic visitor from spaceAnyone in northern Germany who turned their eyes to the sky on the afternoon of September 12, 2019 could witness an unusual spectacle: a bright streak of light flashed briefly, accompanied by a bang - a meteorite from space. The day after, a citizen of Flensburg reported a strange discovery: a table tennis ball-sized stone with an unusual appearance was lying in his garden. Since then, the "Flensburg meteorite" has caused a stir among experts. |
Archive (before 2023)
erstellt von S. Merchel
November 2017 - The ECHo (Electron Capture in Holmium Experiment) team performs experiments at DREAMS.
Development of AMS at DREAMS for experimental determination of the ratio 163Ho/166mHo in ECHo samples. The long-lived 166mHo (t1/2=1200 a) is an unwanted by-product of the 163Ho (t1/2=4570 a) production, which is reduced to ultra-low levels (~10-9) after sophisticated mass separation. For a background-free measurement of the 163Ho spectrum in the ECHo metallic magnetic calorimeters the absence of 166mHo is critical.
June 2017 - DREAMS user Lisa Luna (U Potsam; now: NewClimate Institute for Climate Policy and Global Sustainability, Berlin) receives the graduation award (1.000 Euro) of the university of Potsdam 2017. She graduated in geosciences with her MSc work "A glacial chronology and cosmogenic nuclide cross calibration from the central southern Andean Plateau (Puna, 24°S)“. The university of Potsdam gives this yearly award to persons who show a high potential for scienctific work and further qualification. The work was performed under the supervision of Bodo Bookhagen, Institute of Earth and Environmental Science. Further information (in German only) can be found here: "Alumni des Monats 06/2017 - Lisa Luna ".
January 2017 - Meeting of project partners for BMBF-Förderung „Erforschung kondensierter Materie“ - Entwicklung einer effizienten Hochstromionenquelle für Untersuchungen von Mikrometeoriten mit Beschleunigermassenspektrometrie (Project part 1 (U Göttingen); Project part 2 (TU Berlin) at the Ion Beam Centre (IBC)
Dezember 2016 - Treasure in ice core waste: Elsevier promotes our Open-Access-Paper in Results in Physics by making it a "Highlight".
Original publication (Microarticle): L. Zipf, S. Merchel, P. Bohleber, G. Rugel, A. Scharf, Exploring ice core drilling chips from a cold Alpine glacier for cosmogenic radionuclide (10Be) analysis, Results in Physics 6 (2016) 78-79.
October 2016 - "Self-praise? - Never mind!" We are really proud about our second place in the poster competition at the "Archäometrie und Denkmalpflege" meeting in Göttingen for our German poster "Bestimmung langlebiger Radionuklide mittels Beschleunigermassenspektrometrie (AMS) für archäometrische Fragestellungen".
August 2016 - The first PNAS paper with DREAMS-data is published:
More information can be found in the common press release "Discovery of a time-resolved supernova signal in Earth’s microfossils".
April 2016 - Size does matter! ;-)
Succesful sampling of big boulders from a rock fall in Namibia.
April 2016 - The first Nature paper with DREAMS-data is published:
A. Wallner, J. Feige, N. Kinoshita, M. Paul, L.K. Fifield, R. Golser, M. Honda, U. Linnemann, H. Matsuzaki, S. Merchel, G. Rugel, S.G. Tims, P. Steier, T. Yamagata, S.R. Winkler, Recent near-Earth supernovae probed by global deposition of interstellar radioactive 60Fe, Nature 532 (2016) 69-72.
A.L. Melott has been so excited about our research results and of those of our colleagues Breitschwerdt et al. that he decided to summarize both Nature papers in his publication "Stellar astrophysics: Supernovae in the neighbourhood". Or as we say here: A supernova seldom comes alone.
You can read more on this in the press release.
December 2015 - The first Science paper with DREAMS-data is published:
W. Schwanghart, A. Bernhardt, A. Stolle, P. Hoelzmann, B.R. Adhikari, C. Andermann, S. Tofelde, S. Merchel, G. Rugel, M. Fort, O. Korup, Repeated catastrophic valley infill following medieval earthquakes in the Nepal Himalaya, Science Express.
A press conference at the AGU Fall meeting introduced our paper and the one of Kargel et al. (Science Express) to the public. Instant notice was taken e.g. by Nature News.
Thanks to our coauthors for sampling this big guy and trusting DREAMS to determine a 10Be exposure age as low as 330 years!
October 2015 - DREAMS-User Dr. Jenny Feige (VERA, U Vienna; now TU Berlin) receives the "Klaus Tschira Preis für verständliche Wissenschaft" for her German paper "Astronomie unter dem Meer" (astronomy under the sea).
October 2015 - Stefan Pavetich succesfully defends his PhD thesis "Determination of non-routine radionuclides by medium-energy accelerator mass spectrometry" at the TU Dresden - Congratulations, Dr. Pavetich! And best wishes for your Post-Doc at ANU!
September 2015 - DREAMS-User Dr. Jenny Feige (VERA, U Vienna; now TU Berlin) receives the dissertation award of the division nuclear chemistry of the Gesellschaft Deutscher Chemiker (GDCh) for her work "Supernova-Produced Radionuclides in Deep-Sea Sediments Measured with AMS“. Prof. Christoph Düllmann hands the award over.
July 2015 - Team "Ion beam Analytics" brings light to the "Lange Nacht der Wissenschaften" (Researchers’ Night)...
June 2015 - Team building activity (HIF-Group IBA) in "Saxon Switzerland" (with guest from Switzerland and IBC-colleague)
January 2015 - Georg Rugel publishes with colleagues from Canberra, Wien, Garching, Jerusalem and Darmstadt in Nature Communications about "Abundance of live 244Pu in deep-sea reservoirs on Earth points to rarity of actinide nucleosynthesis".
January 2015 - Our DFG-project "Evolution of the western Namibian drainage systems since Eocene times – a multi-methodical approach" together with Senckenberg Naturhistorische Sammlungen Dresden starts with taking samples in Namibia.
November/December 2014 - Knowledge-transfer: ANSTO- and VERA-colleagues Mike Hotchkis (2. from left), Peter Steier (2. from right) and Stephan Winkler (right) help us to develop actinides-AMS at DREAMS.
October 2014 - The HIAF scientists Anton Wallner (left) and Michaela Fröhlich (right) from the ANU in Canberra (DAAD project AUGEAS) help us again to perform heavy element mass spectrometry experiments and meet members of the User Selection Panel (Gunther Korschinek, TUM (middle) of the ion beam center.
July 2014 - Report (in German) about the Super-SIMS in the HZDR-Forschungsmagazin "entdeckt" - Ionen auf der Überholspur (picture by Oliver Killig).
Mai 2014 - Hundreds of visitors took the chance at the Tag des offenen Labors (Open day) to go on a guided tour led by the ion beam analytics group of HIF.
April 2014 - Our paper about the didicated ion source for volatiles is published.
S. Pavetich, S. Akhmadaliev, M. Arnold, G. Aumaître, D. Bourlès, J. Buchriegler, R. Golser, K. Keddadouche, M. Martschini, S. Merchel, G. Rugel, P. Steier, Interlaboratory study of the ion source memory effect in 36Cl accelerator mass spectrometry, Nucl. Instr. and Meth. in Phys. Res. B Nucl. Instr. and Meth. in Phys. Res. B 329 (2014) 22–29.
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.nimb.2014.02.130
April 2014 - Our review paper reaches "Number One" of "Most accessed papers throughout 2013" of Geostandards and Geoanalytical Research (GGR). Our paper has achieved the highest download statistics (currently > 1400) ever for GGR.
M. Wiedenbeck, R. Bugoi, M.J.M. Duke, T. Dunai, J. Enzweiler, M. Horan, K.P. Jochum, K. Linge, J. Košler, S. Merchel, L. Morales, L. Nasdala, R. Stalder, P. Sylvester, U. Weis, A. Zoubir, Critical Review of Analytical Developments since 2010, Geostandards and Geoanalytical Research 36 (2012) 337-398.
https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1751-908X.2012.00218.x
February 2014 - As the Super-SIMS-source has now its own "home", the installation starts by adjusting its height to the accelerator.
December 2013 - Arrival of the CAMECA IMS 7f-Auto - our new ion source for the Super-SIMS project.
September 2013 - We perform our first heavy element mass spectrometry experiments together with HIAF-scientists from Canberra (DAAD-project AUGEAS) at DREAMS.
September 2013 - We are proud to annouce that René has received a poster award! He presented our poster entitled "High-Speed PIXE – schnelle Multielementanalyse mit Ionenstrahlen" (R. Ziegenrücker, J. Buchriegler, D. Hanf, J. Gutzmer, S. Ihle, S. Merchel, F. Munnik, A.D. Renno, G. Rugel, O. Scharf) at the annual meeting of the nuclear chemistry division, which took place at Darmstadt as part of the GDCh-Wissenschaftsforum.
August 2013 - "First stone laying" of the Super-SIMS House-in-House.
May 2013 - DREAMS scientists "learn" heavy element mass spectrometry at the HIAF @ ANU, Canberra (DAAD project AUGEAS).
18th December 2012 - First "element picture" taken at the HS-PIXE-Beamline.
September 2012 - The HIF trainees within the TU Dresden project "Lehrer studiert Unternehmen" (Lisa Michel and Rebecca Schmidt) are preparing AMS samples from manganese nodules.
September 2012 - The DFG supports our bilateral Networking (FRALAMS) with ASTER, Aix-en-Provence, France: Maurice Arnold @ DREAMS.
28th August 2012 - Installation of the 6.4 tons heavy Gabbro plate for Super-SIMS experiment.
August 2012 - First HIF trainee in the IBA group: Dominique Brising (TUBAF).
9th May 2012 - Arrival of Super-SIMS ion source.
Press coverage:
- Nanowerk News Nanotechnology Research and General News10.05.2012Tons of equipment for nanograms of science
- HZDR Press release 09.05.2012
March 2012 - First HIF trainee within the TU Dresden project "Lehrer studiert Unternehmen": Andreas Rieseler