Read more: Earlier talks and conference archive
Interesting pictures, videos, popular science articles, and media reports.
Jens Moesgaard et al 2025 J. Phys.: Condens. Matter 37 025101
Congratulation for Jens! Enthusiasm for science and hard work paid off!
T. Fujita, Y. Chen, Y. Kono, S. Takahashi, H. Kasai, D. Campi, M. Bernasconi, K. Ohara, H. Yumoto, T. Koyama, H. Yamazaki, Y. Senba, H. Ohashi, I. Inoue, Y. Hayashi, M. Yabashi, E. Nishibori, R. Mazzarello, S. Wei, Pressure-induced reversal of Peierls-like distortions elicits the polyamorphic transition in GeTe and GeSe. Nat Commun 14, 7851 (2023).
In the last weeks, we have organized this year's Joint Aarhus-Hamburg Summer Course on X-ray Free Electtron Laser in Hamburg (2023). Virtual Lab combined with real-lab learning is our initiative of innnovative teaching!
Congratulations to Dr. Tomoki Fujita for delivering his first invited talk!
The annual DanScatt XFEL workshop and DanScatt Meeting 2023 took place at Aalborg University in the beautiful city Aalborg at the seaside! Scientists from Denmark and top labs of the world gathered to discuss the latest research using X-ray free electron lasers (XFEL) and synchrotron as well as neutrons. It is an exciting event and everyone enjoyed sciences!
We have reported a new finding about the secondary (β-) relaxations in amorphous phase-change materials (PCMs). Our research reveals a strong connection between crystallization and β-relaxations, demonstrating tunability in Ge15Sb85. This discovery offers a new approach to control the crystallization of PCMs by manipulating β-relaxations, potentially benefiting non-volatile memory and neuromorphic applications.
In Nov. 2022, our group had a trip to Lund for an beamtime at the DanMAX beamline of the MAXIV Lab, in Lund, Sweden. Thanks to the great support of the MAXIV scientists Mads Ry Vogel Jørgensen and Frederik Holm Gjørup, the experiment worked well and we all had a great experience at the one of the best state-of-the-art synchrotron X-ray sources in the world!
Now lots of data are collected to be analyszed.
In the first week of June, 2022, we traveled to LCLS at the SLAC campus and did some exiting experiments at the XPP beamline with excellent support from SLAC scientists and collaborators! Cool things happened!
News of Faculty of Natural Science:
"...The VILLUM FOUNDATION has selected this year's 16 research talents to be part of the Villum Young Investigator programme. Six of this year's researchers are from Natural Sciences.
Six young researchers from Aarhus University can now call themselves Villum Young Investigators 2022. They have just become part of the VILLUM FOUNDATION programme, which targets the research stars of the future.
The VILLUM FOUNDATION applauds and supports researchers with high-reaching ambitions and impressive ideas that can shape the future, and this year the foundation has selected 16 new investigators, who will receive grants of between DKK 6 and 8 million for their projects.
"It's very gratifying that these young researchers now have the opportunity to develop their own impressive ideas. Many of them are backed up by their host departments with solid career opportunities. Things look good for Danish research," says Thomas Bjørnholm, director of science at the VILLUM FOUNDATION."
Read more:
..."16 talented researchers in the technical and natural sciences are to receive grants totalling DKK 102 million that will allow them to pursue their ideas and establish their own research groups at Danish universities.."
https://veluxfoundations.dk/en/16-new-villum-young-investigators-in-2022
..."Assistant Professor Maarten Goesten, Assistant Professor Shuai Wei and Postdoc Bernadette Rosati each receive a Young Investigator grant of approximately 6 million Danish Kroner from the Villum Foundation."
...Assistant Professor Shuai Wei receives 2,990,757 DKK (approx. $454,000) for his project, aimed to develop new types of amorphous metals for 3D printed biomedical devices. Unlike conventional metals, amorphous metals have the disordered atomic arrangement and exhibit an extraordinary combination of properties, such as high strength, hardness, large elastic limit and high corrosion and wear resistance. The application of new 3D printed biocompatible amorphous metals in the context of biomedical devices and surgery may substantially improve the life quality and comfortableness of patients.
....
Read more:
Two young bachelor students just completed their first-ever adventure to DESY (Hamburg) and contributed to solve the real-world materials chemistry problem using brilliant synchrotron X-rays. I am always impressed by how fast young people can learn new things and how much interest can be stimulated by doing good science!
![[Translate to English:] XFEL, teaching, virtual lab](/fileadmin/_processed_/1/8/csm_XFEL_teaching_4a8612d54a.jpg)
I am thrilled by this new way of teaching! Great pleasure to support and accompany young researchers and students to perform femtosecond X-ray diffractions in the virtual lab of the world's most brilliant X-ray Free Electron Lasers! I think teaching in a Virtual Lab will be an important part of the future educations and training for large-scale facility research.
From a post of Department of Chemistry :
"Professor Christian Bressler from European XFEL/University of Hamburg and our own tenure-track Assistant Professor Shuai Wei are striving to develop innovative ways of teaching for the new era of large-scale facility research! 😃 Together, they recently organised an online three-day course - 'Entering the Virtual Lab -- X-ray free electron laser (XFEL)' - where young researchers and students from Aarhus, Hamburg, DTU - Technical University of Denmark and Southern Federal University (former Rostov State University) were introduced to the world's most intense X-ray source, the X-ray Free Electron Laser (XFEL). This X-ray source can capture a 'movie' of atomic motion with a time-resolution of a few femtoseconds thanks to its super brilliance and short pulses (even ten billion more brilliant than that of synchrotron X-rays)...." Read more:
The much anticipated in-person meeting at a 18th century Sandbjerg Manor. A breath of fresh air and lots of inspiration.
(10-May-2021)
As an AIAS Associate Fellow, I was so fortunate to participate the conversation on creativity and art, and science with Danish artist Bjørn Nørgaard, at AIAS (the first time in person after such a long Covid19 pandemic).
I asked Mr. Nørgaard what he thinks about the creativity and continuation in art. In science we build things based on previous works, and sometimes we also propose radically new ideas. Mr. Nørgaard said art is not so different. He often transformed his previous artwork to something new, but also he sometimes says no to the past and create totally new things.
(Photo by AIAS)
Then it was the inauguration of the sculpture by Nørgaard, donated by the New Carlsberg Foundation. The sculpture at the AIAS has three figures: science (facing university), art (facing park), and justice (facing city).
Read the press release about our finding published on Sci. Adv. 6, eaay6726 (2020)
Read about how neutron scattering reveals atomic movements in phase-change materials:
Read this media report about why phase-change materials behave like water:
https://physicsworld.com/a/liquid-phase-change-material-behaves-like-water/
Read the popular science article about how synchrotron X-ray reveals atomic-scale structure of amorphous materials:
