Research with Neutrons and Muons (NUM)

During the week of March 15 – 19, we had the pleasure to welcome 20 international PhD students, PostDocs and assistant professors at PSI, taking part in the first virtual Hercules School on Neutrons & Synchrotron Radiation.

In 2018 an agreement between the Laboratoire Léon Brillouin (LLB) and Paul Scherrer Institut has been signed with the aim to jointly operate a new small angle neutron scattering (SANS) instrument at the Swiss spallation neutron source SINQ. 

Marc Janoschek, the head of the Laboratory for Neutron and Muon Instrumentation (LIN), was appointed as Associate Professor ad personam for experimental physics – correlated quantum materials at the University of Zurich starting February 1, 2021.

Early 2020, an agreement between the Helmholtz-Zentrum Berlin and Paul Scherrer Institut has been signed, according to which the recently commissioned Laue Diffractometer Falcon (E11) would be transferred from HZB to PSI. The purpose of this agreement was to make state-of-the-art equipment from the recently closed research reactor BER-II at HZB work for scientific community at SINQ.

Stefan Ritt, leader of the Muon Physics group at the Laboratory for Particle Physics, has received today the prestigious IEEE Emilio Gatti Radiation Instrumentation Technical Achievement Award, for "contributions to the development and democratization of ultra-high-speed digitizers”.

With Mario Liechti (gold) and Melvin Deubelbeiss (bronze) two of our electronics apprentices achieved a place on the winners’ podium at the SwissSkills 2020. The SwissSkills are the Swiss professional championships organized by the leading industry associations. The final competition took place October 27 - 30, 2020 at Schindler Elevators in Ebikon.

Franziska Hagelstein has been awarded a Swiss National Science Foundation Ambizione grant with PSI as host institution. She joined the particle theory group (NUM, Laboratory of Particle Physics LTP) in October 2020. In the near future she will be accompanied by a PhD student.