Abandon de l’énergie nucléaire, développement de l’énergie solaire et éolienne, production d’énergie à partir de la biomasse, réduction de la consommation d’énergie. D’ici 2050, la Suisse doit atteindre la neutralité climatique. Un objectif ambitieux, rendu plus urgent que jamais par une situation géopolitique de plus en plus difficile. Comment faire pour mettre en place ces prochaines années un approvisionnement énergétique durable et résistant pour la Suisse? Comment les énergies renouvelables peuvent-elles être utilisées de manière optimale? Quelles sont les nouvelles technologies les plus prometteuses? Au PSI, des chercheurs s’efforcent de trouver des réponses à ces questions décisives.
Silver medal at the EuroSkills
Silver medal for Mario Liechti at the EuroSkills in Graz, Austria.
Ultrafast electron localization
This experiment performed at SwissFEL shows how fast we can localize electrons out of an electron gas into correlated, well localized states of a material. It is based on a combined ultrafast x-ray absorption and diffraction experiment on an intermetallic system.
Microscopie à rayons X avec 1000 images tomographiques par seconde
A la Source de Lumière Suisse SLS, des chercheurs ont établi un nouveau record dans le cadre d’une méthode d’imagerie appelée tomoscopie.
Topping out ceremony at Park Innovaare’s New Campus
Today, on September 24th, Switzerland Innovation Park Innovaare holds its topping out ceremony to celebrate the completion of its new Innovation Campus building together with more than 300 guests from science, industry and politics. The new research and development campus has a size of 38’000 m2 and consists of two 7-story-buildings which are connected by a large, temperature-stable and vibrationfree cleanroom.
NCCR-MARVEL Highlight 2021
First-ever rare earth nickelate single crystals lead to first experimental evidence supporting predicted multiferroicity
CHRISP — All the key results in one place
A specialSciPost volume, entitled “Review of Particle Physics at PSI”, has recently been completed.
Nouveaux et futurs radionucléides médicaux
Meilleur traitement des tumeurs disséminées
The ICE MEMORY program
As an international initiative, ICE MEMORY aims at collecting heritage ice cores from the world’s key endangered glaciers to store them under safe conditions and international governance in Antarctica for future generations of scientists.
Unpaired Weyl Point observed for the first time in crystalline solid
Flows need sources and sinks. That’s why, in a new class of exotic materials called Weyl semimetals, the sources and sinks of Berry curvature – dubbed Weyl points – were believed to exist only in pairs. Now researchers at PSI have observed unpaired Weyl points for the first time in a crystalline solid. This discovery, which upends conventional thinking and the so-called Nielson-Niomiya no-go theorem, demonstrates the unique properties of "nodal wall" Weyl semimetals in comparison to conventional Weyl systems having only zero-dimensional Weyl nodes.
CHRISP — All the key results in one place
A specialSciPost volume, entitled “Review of Particle Physics at PSI”, has recently been completed.
Europameisterschaften in Österreich
PSI-Elektroniker Mario Liechti vertritt die Schweiz an den EuroSkills in Graz.
TOP 100 Swiss Startup Award: Araris Biotech AG erreicht den 11.Platz
Araris Biotech AG ist ein Spin-off-Unternehmen des Paul Scherrer Instituts (PSI) und der ETH Zürich, welches sich mit der Entwicklung neuartiger Antikörper-Wirkstoff-Verbindungen zur gezielten Therapie von Krebszellen beschäftigt.
Bei der diesjährigen Ausgabe des «TOP 100 Swiss Startup Award», bei welchem die besten Startups der Schweiz ausgezeichnet werden, belegt Araris den den 11. Platz! Was für ein grosser Erfolg für das Start-up, welches im Jahr 2020 bereits Platz 13 und Platz 95 im Jahr 2019 erreichte.
Wir gratulieren Philipp Spycher (CEO) und den seinem Team zu diesem tollen Erfolg!
Berufsschau 2021 in Wettingen
"Wir waren mit Freude dabei"
Vom 7. – 12. September 2021 fand in Wettingen im Tägi die Aargauische Berufsschau ab’21 statt. Das PSI war wieder mit einem Stand vertreten. Mit Freude stellten wir unsere Lehrstellen und das iLab vor.
«Price tags» of the Swiss energy transition
NZZ am Sonntag has picked up this highlight in its issue on March 7th, 2021: The highlight refers to the analysis performed in SCCER Joint Activity Scenarios and Modelling, where PSI-LEA performed the analysis of the energy transition pathways.
EXCITE Summer School at TOMCAT
In the framework of the 15th EXCITE Summer School in Biomedical Imaging which took place in Zürich on 6-17 September 2021, we were pleased to host 8 students at the beamline for a hands-on session. During this practical on “Synchrotron based X-ray tomographic microscopy”, the students had the chance to see and learn about the beamline infrastructure, scan a few test samples, reconstruct the tomographic volumes and discuss different aspects of tomographic microscopy at a synchrotron.
Challenge at the Energy Data Hackdays 2021
Chris Mutel, a scientist at PSI's Laboratory for Energy Systems Analysis who specialises in life cycle and sustainability analyses, prepared a challenge for the Energy Data Hackdays happening on the 24th and 25th of September 2021 in Brugg
Congratulations Mario!
Our PhD student Mario Veicht has recently contributed to the success of "EPFL Xplore's space rover, Argos" taking third place in this year’s European Rover Challenge, held in Poland on 10–12 September. The team also won best performance in both the science and probing tasks.
The X-ray optics design and fabrication team has a new member
The X-ray Tomography group welcomes Craig Lawley as Postdoc in the X-ray optics design and fabrication team. He will contribute to developing the microfabrication process of hard X-ray gratings in silicon substrates suitable for preclinical testing with pitch size in the micrometer range and aspect ratio higher than 100.
L’énigme de la coquille souple
Pourquoi la coquille d'un animal marin est molle dans l'eau mais dure dans l'air.
«Je voulais faire des choses concrètes dont je pourrai être fier»
L’apprentissage dans le domaine des EPF: Rohat Sihyürek a rejoint le PSI comme apprenti polymécanicien.
Swiss Science Today (SCIENA)
Die Berufslehre – das verborgene Gesicht der Schweizer Forschung.
Lernende spielen eine wenig bekannte, aber wichtige Rolle in der Schweizer Wissenschaft. SCIENA wirft einen Blick auf junge Menschen, die in den Institutionen des ETH-Bereichs ausgebildet werden.
Hierarchical imaging and computational analysis of three-dimensional vascular network architecture in mouse brain
An international team involving researchers from the University and University Hospital Zürich, the Krembil Research Institute and the University and University Hospital in Toronto (Canada), the Department of Physics of Jyväskylä (Finland), the University of Leuven (Belgium), the Johannes Kepler University in Linz (Austria), the Novartis Institutes for Biomedical Research in Emeryville (USA), the ETH Zürich and the Paul Scherrer Institute has developed a protocol that enables hierarchical imaging and computational analysis of vascular networks in entire postnatal- and adult mouse brains, enabling direct and quantitative comparisons of the morphological brain vascular network architecture between different postnatal and / or adult developmental stages. The results have been published on Nature Protocols on September 3rd, 2021.
Watch them growing: New mechanistic insights into catalytic methane coupling
Methane valorization is a promising technology to utilize this platform compound to produce aromatics and hydrocarbons. Researchers from PSI and ETH Zürich unveiled this reaction mechanism and observed the molecular growth from the ground up. Besides stepwise CH3 addition, novel routes involving the dimerization of resonantly stabilized propargyl (C3H3) radicals to benzene (C6H6) were identified. These mechanistic insights will aid the development of valorisation strategies.
Welcome to Antoine Roose
We warmly welcome Antoine Roose as Postdoc in the Laboratory of Environmental Chemistry. He joined the Surface Chemistry group on 1 September 2021.
D'où viendra l'électricité en 2050?
L'objectif de zéro émission nette de CO2 est techniquement réalisable.
TOMCAT welcomes on board two scientists
The X-ray Tomography group welcomes on board Mariana Verezhak and Goran Lovric as members of the TOMCAT beamline crew. They will both contribute to the further development and realization of TOMCAT 2.0 (S- and I-TOMCAT branches on SLS2.0).
Le pratique dans l’extraordinaire
Niels Schröter se voit décerner un prix de la Société Suisse de Physique (SSP).
First direct observation of the oxygen transport in polymer electrolyte water electrolysis
PSI researchers have developed a new methodology for studying the complex transport processes in polymer electrolyte water electrolysis (PEWE). Using advanced operando X-ray tomographic microscopy, we were able to observe for the first time the formation of oxygen pathways in the porous transport layer, in three dimensions. Understanding oxygen transport is crucial for improving PEWE technology and this work provides precious insights for the design of future, better-performing PEWE cells.
Welcome Man Guo
A new colleague, Ms. Man Guo, started on September 1, 2021 as a PhD student in the van Bokhoven group under Luca Artiglia's supervision and we would like to welcome her.
A strong commitment for science communication
PSI is engaging in public outreach at a major event in Zürich, the "Scientifica" Science Days September 4 and 5.