The German-Russian laboratory at BESSY II, Berlin’s electron storage ring for synchrotron radiation, has secured funding to maintain operations for the next five years. The German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) granted 1 million euros to the facility, available as of April 1, according to an announcement on Monday by the lab’s coordinator and chairperson of the steering committee, Prof. Dr. Eckart Rühl from the Department of Biology, Chemistry, Pharmacy at Freie Universität Berlin. During the new funding period, lab operations will be shared with Prof. Dr. Clemens Laubschat’s research group from the Technische Universität Dresden. With two beamlines and state-of-the-art scientific equipment, the lab will be able to study the storage materials of the future, nanometer-scale electronics, and new plastics. Since 2001 numerous scientists have conducted experiments at the lab. The facility has attracted researchers from over 25 different universities in Russia and Germany. A consortium of eight German and Russian research institutions manages the lab. The members include Freie Universität Berlin, Technische Universität Dresden, Helmholtz Zentrum Berlin, St. Petersburg University, the Ioffe Institute, the Kurchatov Institute, the Shubnikov Institute, and Technische Universität Freiberg.

.