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On October 1 and 2, the Laboratory of Neutron and Muon Instrumentation (LIN) hosted the first meeting of the working group on “Synergies in Technology Development and Operation” of the League of Advanced European Neutron Sources, LENS, to kick off developments aimed at creating a new generation of neutron technology.

On 24 September the Paul Scherrer Institut was the venue of a meeting between the top supervisory board of the European Spallation Source ESS to be built in Lund, Sweden, and representatives of the Swiss government from SERI. The chair and the vice chair of the ESS Council, Beatrix Vierkorn-Rudolph and Kurt Clausen, respectively came to Switzerland to discuss the Swiss In-Kind Contributions to the largest spallation neutron source under construction in Sweden.

PSI researcher Dr. Michał Rawlik has been awarded the CHIPP Prize 2019 "for his outstanding contribution to the improvement of experimental techniques aimed at detecting the Electric Dipole Moment of the neutron, and exploiting the consequences of such measurements in setting bounds on possible Axion fields".

Highly efficient two-dimensional detectors are essential for the performance of modern neutron diffractometers. The NUM Division of PSI and the Technical University Munich TUM jointly develop two identical new ³He gas detectors, one for the diffractometer DMC at SINQ and the other for operation at FRM-II in Munich. 

The European Conference on Neutron Scattering (ECNS) with its recent 2019 edition in St. Petersburg is a spree of lectures, poster sessions, and expert talks on the current trends and future possibilities in neutron science. PSI with its neutron source SINQ was represented by members of the three NUM laboratories LNS, LMX and LIN. In addition, PSI was silver sponsor of ECNS 2019 and is also a member of the LENS consortium (League of Advanced European Neutron Sources).

In the division Research with Neutrons and Muons (NUM) all technical knowledge and expertise concerned with the development and operation of the scientific instrumentation for neutron and muon experiments at our user facilities have been united in the new Laboratory for Neutron and Muon Instrumentation (LIN). 

Max Zoller, currently at the Physik-Institut of the University of Zurich (UZH), has been awarded a Swiss National Science Foundation Ambizione grant with PSI as host institution. Together with a PhD student he will join the particle theory group (NUM, Laboratory of Particle Physics (LTP)). The research of Max Zoller focuses on the automation of perturbative higher-order calculations. With the Ambizione grant Max will now move to PSI for four years, starting on June 1, 2019.

The members of the League of advanced European Neutron Sources (LENS) held their first General Assembly and the first Executive Board meeting on 26 March 2019 in Liblice, the Czech Republic. The consortium adopted and signed Statutes detailing the purpose of LENS, guiding the work of the statutory bodies, and laying the framework for Working Groups responsible for the execution of foreseen activities. For the Swiss spallation neutron source SINQ the head of the NUM division Christian Rüegg signed the documents. 

Dr Pascal Puphal (currently a Postdoc at PSI, LMX, Solid State Chemistry Group) has recently been awarded with the DGKK young researcher price from the German Crystal Growth Community on his Ph.D. work performed in the group of Cornelius Krellner at the Geothe University Frankfurt am Main on the topic "Tuning two dimensional Cu-based quantum spin systems". The work covers the stabilization and proof of a 2D dimer structure by Sr substitution in Han Purple and the research of novel kagome materials of the prominent quantum spin liquid candidate herbertsmithite by the hydrothermal route.

Dr Marc Janoschek has been appointed new head of the NUM Laboratory for Scientific Developments and Novel Materials LDM. He will take office on November 15, 2018. Marc studied Physics at TU Munich and did his PhD at PSI and TUM on "Neutron Scattering on Chiral Magnets". After that he went to the University of California in San Diego as Feodor-Lynen Fellow. Since 2011 he is head of "Neutron research" in the "Condensed Matter and Magnet Science" group in Los Alamos. For his research Marc has been awarded the Wolfram Prandl Prize and the Los Alamos Fellow Prize for Outstanding Research. We wish Marc success and satisfaction for his new duties and wish to thank cordially Peter Keller, who led the LDM ad interim since March 2018.

On September 12 representatives of eight European research infrastructures including SINQ at PSI signed the Charter of the League of advanced European Neutron Sources (LENS) at the International Conference of Research Infrastructures, ICRI2018 in Vienna. The signing ceremony marks the establishment of a new strategic consortium of European neutron source facilities with the aim, according to the charter, to “facilitate any form of discussion and decision-making process that has the potential to strengthen European neutron science via enhanced collaboration among the facilities”. The founding partners in the consortium include both European and national facilities in France, Germany, Sweden, Hungary, the United Kingdom, Norway and Switzerland. Other qualifying facilities are invited to join at any time.

The International Society for Neutron Radiology ISNR was founded in 1996 with the aim to organize regular conferences with the focus on the use of neutrons for imaging purposes. During the 11th World Conference on Neutron Radiography, held recently in Sydney (Australia) and organized by ANSTO, the Honorary Membership of ISNR was awarded to Eberhard Lehmann - in recognition to his contributions for the progress in the field of neutron imaging on national and international level. The Neutron Imaging and Activation Group NIAG of the LNS has been active member in ISNR from the very beginning. Presently and since 2014, Markus Strobl the head of NIAG is vice-president elected of ISNR – and was reelected recently until 2022. In addition, NIAG member Pavel Trtik is now representing PSI in the ISNR board until 2022.