Contact

Yvonne Matthes
International Office
Personnel Affairs Department
Phone: +49 351 260 2821

Dr. Kay Potzger
Institute of Ion Beam Physics and Materials Research
Phone: +49 351 260 3244

Email: summer@hzdr.de

Research fields at HZDR

The research at HZDR is divided in the three fields Energy, Health and Matter. In each field, researcher from different disciplines work together on research projects. In addition, we offer more technology oriented tasks for summer students. In order to give you an impression of possible summer student projects, we give some examples from the last years.


Matter

1. Matter

In the Research Field Matter for example, materials are examined under extreme conditions – such as very high magnetic fields and very low temperatures – in order to improve conventional materials and to develop new ones. The institute for ion beam physics and material research investigates the structure of different materials in order to understand and improve them, while scientists in the institute for radiation physics e.g. operate a high current electron accelerator and two high-power lasers in the petawatt range in order to explore new particle acceleration mechanisms. 

Previous summer student project included:

  • Online spectral-temporal measurement of an ultra-short laser pulse
  • Study of electrons in plasma-laser interaction with ultra-intense laser pulses
  • Ferromagnetic resonance measurements
  • Molecular dynamics simulation of substrate-supported MoS2 under ion irradiation
  • Terahertz time-domain spectroscopy: photoconductive emitters
  • Fabrication and characterization of hyperdoped Si nanowires
  • Commissioning experiments of the 5 MV underground ion accelerator

Health

2. Health

Scientist from various fields e.g. biology, physics, chemistry and medicine work together on cancer research, main areas are imaging and radiooncology. The research spectrum covers a wide range from visualizing the cancer with positron emission tomography (PET), the development of radiopharmaceutical drugs up to the improvement of proton therapy.

Previous summer student project included:

  • Histological evaluations of a human (HPV positive) tumour model
  • Granule cell dispersion in the irradiated murine hippocampus
  • Investigation on the anti-cancer behaviour of a light-activated Ruthenium(II)dicarbonyl complex
  • Monte Carlo simulation framework for clinical PET systems
  • Evaluation of DNA-damage and cell cycle status of xenograft tumors

Energy

3. Energy

In the Research Field Energy scientists from physics as well as engineers are seeking to safeguard and assure both energy supplies and resources over the long term in a sustainable manner in order to find economically and ecologically viable solutions for these challenges. The research conducted at HZDR focuses on the one hand on the energy efficient use of raw materials and the permanent disposal of nuclear waste. On the other hand HZDR scientists also develop new cost-efficient batteries to store large amounts of energy and explore new approaches to save energy and resources in industrial processes.

Previous summer student project included:

  • Nuclear waste management
  • Application of advanced simulation tools for safety analyses of nuclear reactors
  • Modeling of protone exchange membrane electrolyzers for hydrogen production
  • Accelerator Mass Spectrometry
  • Foam fluid motion study

Technology

4. Technology

In order to perform high impact research, a sophisticated technology is necessary. Therefore all divisions develop cutting edge technology.

Previous summer student project included:

  • Data transfer and processing
  • OpenStack integration in das High Performance Computing
  • Equivariant U-Net Neural Networks for Image Segmentation

A further overview of the HZDR research fields you can find here.

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