Penetrating Fluids and Materials in Solution using the Latest Methods
New Joint Lab of Helmholtz Centre Berlin and Freie Universität Berlin Officially Launched / With Press Photos
№ 226/2012 from Aug 17, 2012
On Friday in Berlin an opening ceremony was held for a new research facility operated by Helmholtz Centre Berlin (HZB) and Freie Universität Berlin. It offers unprecedented possibilities for the investigation of functional materials in solution. The materials being investigated can be advanced metallic materials, but also biological substances such as proteins. The laboratory is located in two locations: at the electron storage ring BESSY II in the Adlershof Technology Park and a new laser laboratory at Freie Universität. The director of the new facility is Dr. Emad Flear Aziz, a junior professor in the Department of Physics at Freie Universität Berlin.
For representatives of the media, photos of Professor Aziz and the new lab may be downloaded (see below). They may be used free of charge as long as the photographer, Bernd Wannenmacher, is named in the photo credits.
In the new facility Emad Aziz and his team use high-power lasers and synchrotron radiation to explore the structure and properties of liquids and interfaces, such as between two liquids that cannot mix. The work is being funded with a total of 3.5 million euros over a period of five years. The findings of materials research benefit innovations in medical technology and the energy industry, such as in the fight against diseases such as cancer or in the development of solar cells.
In her opening address, the scientific director of the Helmholtz-Zentrum Berlin, Prof. Dr. Anke Kaysser Pyzalla, emphasized that the joint lab offers great opportunities for collaboration between scientists from both institutions, but also with researchers worldwide. Both Pyzalla and the president of Freie Universität Berlin, Prof. Dr. Peter-André Alt, said they hoped that more collaborations of this type will be set up. Alt designated HZB as a key partner in the region. As Alt said, Professor Aziz and the new laboratory embody Freie Universität Berlin’s development strategy, which places emphasis on training outstanding young scholars from home and abroad as well as on forming regional networks.
Since the beginning of 2009, Emad Flear Aziz, a native Egyptian, has headed a young investigators’ group funded by the Helmholtz Association. The group focuses on "Functional Materials in Solution" and is based at the Helmholtz Centre Berlin for Materials and Energy. Two years ago he was appointed a junior professor in the Department of Physics at Freie Universität Berlin. Together with his research group working at the synchrotron radiation source BESSY II of the Helmholtz-Zentrum Berlin in Adlershof, he employs new and award-winning methods allowing him to investigate the biological and biochemical materials in solutions. In 2011 Aziz was rewarded for his outstanding and promising research to date with an ERC Starting Grant from the European Research Council. He also received the Karl Scheel Prize from the Physical Society of Berlin.
Further Information
Prof. Dr. Emad Flear Aziz, Freie Universität Berlin, Department of Physics, Structure and Dynamics of Functional Materials in Solution, Tel.: +49 (0)30 / 838-75438, Email: emad.aziz@fu-berlin.de