Our latest press releases and news

The European Research Council (ERC) has today announced the winners of its latest Advanced Grant competition. The funding, worth €838 million, will go to 319 leading researchers across Europe. The Advanced Grants give senior researchers the opportunity to pursue ambitious, curiosity-driven projects that could lead to major scientific breakthroughs. Among the awardees in the Physical Sciences and Engineering domain is Prof. Anton Wallner from the Helmholtz-Zentrum Dresden-Rossendorf (HZDR).

An international team of researchers from Dresden as well as from Sydney and Canberra, Australia, has detected rare radioactive isotopes in a deep-sea manganese crust, providing new insights into the formation of the heaviest elements in the universe. Their results show that the last major astrophysical event in the vicinity of our solar system that could have generated such elements happened at least 100 million years ago. Published in the journal Nature Astronomy (DOI:10.1038/s41550-026-02841-6), this international study was led by the Helmholtz-Zentrum Dresden-Rossendorf (HZDR).

Magnetic field sensors are found in automobiles, smartphones and security systems. But many of these components are made of materials that are neither health- nor environment-friendly and are complex to produce. In Nature Communications (DOI: 10.1038/s41467-026-71077-9), an international team led by researchers from the Helmholtz-Zentrum Dresden-Rossendorf (HZDR) has now presented a sustainable alternative: printed sensors composed of iron, iron oxide and bio-based materials like cellulose and starch.

How do gas bubbles behave in turbulent liquids? To answer this question – which is important, for example, for the design of industrial plants – scientists at the Helmholtz-Zentrum Dresden-Rossendorf (HZDR) have significantly refined and applied an experimental method. For this work, they were awarded the HZDR Research Prize on May 21, 2026. At the award ceremony, the research center also honored its employees in the categories of Technology, Transfer, Communication and PhD.

Our Solar System is currently passing through the Local Interstellar Cloud, a region of highly diluted gas and dust between the stars. On its path, Earth continuously accumulates iron-60, a rare radioactive isotope of iron produced in stellar explosions. This has now been confirmed by an international research team led by the Helmholtz-Zentrum Dresden-Rossendorf (HZDR) through the analysis of Antarctic ice tens of thousands of years old.

Ein besonderer Anlass im Großen Hörsaal des HZDR: Mit einem Symposium wurde Prof. Manfred Helm, bisher Direktor am Institut für Ionenstrahlphysik und Materialforschung, am 20. März 2026 in den Ruhestand verabschiedet. Kolleg*innen aus dem In- und Ausland blickten auf gemeinsame wissenschaftliche Wegmarken in der Terahertz-Physik und der Forschung zu 2D-Materialien zurück. Im Anschluss an die Veranstaltung haben wir mit Manfred Helm über prägende Momente am HZDR und seine Pläne für die kommende Zeit gesprochen.

An international team of researchers from TU Dresden, Max Planck Institute of Microstructure Physics Halle, Helmholtz-Zentrum Dresden-Rossendorf (HZDR) and partner institutions across Europe has developed a breakthrough method for producing MXenes – an important family of two-dimensional materials – with unprecedented purity and control. The new “gas-liquid-solid” process enables the synthesis of pure MXenes with uniformly distributed halogen atoms on the surface and a precisely tunable surface composition.

Researchers at the Helmholtz-Zentrum Dresden-Rossendorf (HZDR) have uncovered previously unobserved oscillation states – so-called Floquet states – in tiny magnetic vortices. Unlike earlier experiments, which required energy-intensive laser pulses to create such states, the team in Dresden discovered that a subtle excitation with magnetic waves is sufficient.

Researchers at the Helmholtz-Zentrum Dresden-Rossendorf (HZDR) have partnered with NTNU, the Norwegian University of Science and Technology in Trondheim, and the Institute of Nuclear Physics in the Polish Academy of Sciences to develop a method that facilitates the manufacture of particularly efficient magnetic nanomaterials in a relatively simple process based on inexpensive raw materials.

In einer neuen Podcast-Folge des detektor.fm-Forschungsquartetts spricht Prof. Anton Wallner vom Helmholtz-Zentrum Dresden-Rossendorf (HZDR) über die Spuren vergangener Supernova-Explosionen und darüber, wie sich diese kosmischen Ereignisse noch heute auf der Erde nachweisen lassen.