Lab News

Join me in welcoming Huanyu Yang, our new PhD student in Markus Ammann’s group.



He has a Bachelor degree in Physics and obtained his Master from the University of Rome, “La Sapienza”. The title of his dissertation was “Optical pump-terahertz probe on semiconductors” and the project task was to study the electro-optical properties of several semiconductors by constructing the time-domain and time-resolved spectroscopy with a laser (pulse duration <100 fs), both at equilibrium state and dynamical state.



At PSI, Huanyu Yang will be studying the hydrogen bonding structure at solid and aqueous interfaces with X-Ray photoelectron spectroscopy.

This year's excursion exposed us to high-alpine wild flowers. A guided tour on alpine plant ecology at the Alpine Research Station Furka had to be canceled in last minute, and was replaced by hiking the Grimsel area, equipped with plant ecology apps.

Johannes Schindler successfully defended his PhD at the University of Bern, entitled "An Extraction System for Radiocarbon Microanalysis of Dissolved Organic Carbon in Glacier Ice". The project was jointly funded by the University of Bern and the Paul Scherrer Institut.

Astrid Waldner has been awarded a PhD at the ETH Zurich for her thesis entitled, "Molecular level picture of the interaction between ice and trace gases". The project was funded by the Swiss National Science Foundation and lead by Thorsten Bartels-Rausch.

We warmly welcome Andrés Laso in the Laboratory of Environmental Chemistry joining the Surface Chemistry group. Andrés Laso is a trained mechanic and obtained a degree as a technician in mechanical engineering. Before joining PSI, he worked at ETH for over eight years, in the Laboratory of Physical Chemistry.

Peter A. Alpert was successfully evaluated as part of the PSI-Fellow-II-3i program at the Paul Scherrer Institut. His awarded project focuses on microfabrication of a new in situ photochemical environmental reactor coupled to the X-ray microscope at the PolLux endstation located at the Swiss Light Source. We are thrilled about his success and to include his future work as part of the LUC team.

Listen to an interview with Anja Eichler and Margit Schwikowski featuring new insights to the ancient copper metallurgy in the Andes as derived from ice-core archives.

The LUC team held inspiring discussions about LUC's current and future research in the relaxing atmosphere of Hotel Möschberg near Bern.

We warmly welcome Susanne Haselbeck in the Laboratory of Environmental Chemistry joining the Analytical Chemistry group as of 18th October 2016. Susanne Haselbeck is a chemical lab technician by training and will contribute to our Paleofire project by analysing black carbon in samples from various ice cores using a single particle soot photometer.

We warmly welcome Ling Fang in the Laboratory of Environmental Chemistry joining the Analytical Chemistry group as of 1st October 2016. Ling Fang studied environmental science at the Ocean University of China and received her Master Degree with a major in biogeochemical oceanography from the Seoul National University in South Korea. During her master thesis she developed a vacuum line to extract DOC from ocean water for analysis of its 13C and 14C content. Ling Fang will use her skills to extract DOC from glacier ice to investigate the potential of this specific carbon fraction for 14C dating.

The international project “Protecting Ice Memory” aims to preserve the most valuable ice archives from high altitude glaciers for future generations.



With the ongoing warming of our climate and the consequence of rapid glacier melting observed worldwide, these natural archives of past climate and atmospheric conditions are in danger of being lost forever. As the glaciers warm, percolating melt-water will irreversibly disturb their chronological layering, thus making future investigations by next generation scientists with improved and to date still unknown analytical possibilities impossible.



“Protecting Ice Memory” will collect around 20 ice cores extracted from various glaciers around the globe in a natural ice cave at Concordia Station (Antarctica). With mean annual temperatures of around -50 °C, there, safe long-term storage and preservation of these valuable archives of the past is guaranteed.

This years excursion took the members of the Laboratory of Environmental Chemistry (LUC) up to 3600 m altitude where we visited the high-alpine research station. We enjoyed Heinz Gäggeler, president of the Swiss Commission of the high-alpine research station Jungfraujoch, giving us a tour through the station and a live demonstration of ice core drilling.

We warmly welcome Dr. Alexander Vogel in the Laboratory of Environmental Chemistry joining the Analytical Chemistry group as of 1st July 2016. Alexander Vogel received his PhD at the Johannes Gutenberg-University Mainz and worked as Marie S. Curie ITN Fellow in the EU project CLOUD-TRAIN at CERN in Geneva. Alexander Vogel is an analytical chemist with a strong background in atmospheric chemistry and mass spectrometry and he will apply these skills to reconstruct long-term organic aerosol concentrations from glacier ice cores in a CROSS project with the Laboratory of Atmospheric Chemistry.

We warmly welcome Dr. Peter Alpert in the Laboratory of Environmental Chemistry joining the Surface Chemistry group as of 1st June 2016. Peter Alpert has received his PhD at Stony Brook University and has been a postdoc at CNRS-IRCELYON in France. Peter Alpert will strengthen the group’s activities in application of Scanning Transmission X-ray Spectromicroscopy (STXM) in a CROSS project with the SYN department (PolLux beamline and Laboratory of Micro- and Nanotechnology) to develop a new generation of environmental cells.

The Radiowanderer stroke again: A team of 14 runners from the Laboratory of Environmental Chemistry (LUC) and the Laboratory of Radiochemistry (LRC), as well as a number of external friends and supporters, happily and successfully finished the 43rd Sola event in Zürich. The total distance summed up to 116 km and 2580 m in altitude. Congratulations to the runners!