Users' meeting starts with record attendance

More than 900 participants attended the light sources users' meeting 2015

 Users Meeting

The annual users' meeting of DESY Photon Science and the European XFEL has started on Wednesday with a record attendance: More than 900 participants attended the three-day event at DESY in Hamburg, more than ever before. "The huge participation underscores the tremendous appeal of the X-ray light sources in Hamburg for research," says DESY Research Director for Photon Science Prof. Edgar Weckert.

In more than 30 presentations, the participants from 38 countries will discuss new developments of the DESY facilities, the construction progress of the European XFEL and current research. Every year, more than 2,000 visiting scientists from all over the world use the brilliant X-ray light produced by the DESY particle accelerators to look at new materials with atomic resolution, unravel the function of biomolecules or to record chemical reactions in molecular detail.

Research highlights presented at the users' meeting include investigation and optimisation of custom made cellulose fibres, snapshots of ultrafast magnetisation processes and the first frames of a molecular movie of photosynthesis. In addition, the extension of the DESY research light sources FLASH and PETRA III will be discussed, which have been heavily overbooked for years, as well as the planned experimental stations at the European XFEL, that is currently being built from the DESY Hamburg site to the neighbouring town of Schenefeld in Schleswig-Holstein. Satellite workshops, a poster exhibition and an industry fair showing the latest inventions complete the program.

(from DESY News)