Our latest press releases and news
From single photons to storage: New project aims to integrate quantum light sources with quantum memories
Press Release of 11.06.2025
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.
A lighter, smarter magnetoreceptive electronic skin
Press Release of 27.03.2025
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.
Radioaktivität rettet Leben: Forschungsmagazin „entdeckt“ gibt Einblicke in die moderne radiopharmazeutische Krebsforschung
News of 17.03.2025
Die neue Ausgabe des Magazins beleuchtet, wie sich radioaktive Substanzen präzise und gezielt in der Diagnose und Therapie von Tumoren nutzen lassen, um neue Wege im Kampf gegen den Krebs zu eröffnen. Darüber hinaus gibt es wie gewohnt auch Einblicke in andere Bereiche der aktuellen Forschung an unserem Zentrum.
Reading magnetic states faster – in far infrared
Press Release of 13.03.2025
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.
Touchless tech: Control fabrics with a wave of your finger
Press Release of 05.03.2025
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.
From defect to high-tech material
Press Release of 25.02.2025
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.
Anomaly in the deep sea - Extraordinary accumulation of rare atoms could improve geological dating methods
Press Release of 10.02.2025
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).
Quantum computers in silicon: Development of a new European quantum technology begins
Press Release of 09.01.2025
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.
Temporarily apart: Research team succeeds in ultra-fast switching of tiny light sources
Press Release of 27.09.2024
Extremely thin materials consisting of just a few atomic layers promise applications for electronics and quantum technologies. An international team led by TU Dresden has now made remarkable progress with an experiment conducted at HZDR: The experts were able to induce an extremely fast switching process between electrically neutral and charged luminescent particles in an ultra-thin, effectively two-dimensional material. The result opens up new perspectives for research as well as for optical data processing and flexible detectors. The research is presented in the journal Nature Photonics (DOI: 10.1038/s41566-024-01512-0).
Metamaterials for the data highway: A new concept offering the potential for more efficient data storage
Press Release of 16.07.2024
Researchers from the HZDR, TU Chemnitz, TU Dresden and Forschungszentrum Jülich have been the first to demonstrate that not just individual bits, but entire bit sequences can be stored in cylindrical domains: tiny, cylindrical areas measuring just around 100 nanometers. As the team reports in the journal Advanced Electronic Materials (DOI: 10.1002/aelm.202400251), these findings could pave the way for novel types of data storage and sensors, including even magnetic variants of neural networks.
