Previous Prize Winners
2021
Dr Fredrik Johansson (Institut des NanoSciences de Paris, CNRS, Sorbonne) receives the Ernst Eckhard Koch Prize for his outstanding dissertation. © F.J.
The Ernst Eckhard Koch Prize went to Dr Fredrik Johansson (now Institut des NanoSciences de Paris, CNRS, Sorbonne) for his dissertation at Uppsala University on "Core-hole Clock Spectroscopy Using Hard X-rays - Exciting States in Condensed Matter".
"Overall an exceptional dissertation achievement" said the expert jury, highlighting the number of Johansson’s high-quality scientific publications. "Also impressive is the demonstration of orbital and directional selectivity in ultrafast charge transfer in SnS2 using core-hole-clock," the jury said. Johansson then presented the method in a clear and concise talk: it allows a precise measurement of charge transfer times in different solids and promises deeper insights into solar cells, for example. From 01.10.2020 to 31.8.2021 Fredrik Johansson was a post-doc in the group of Prof. Alexander Föhlisch (University of Potsdam, HZB/BESSY).
2020
Martin Bluschke (MPI for Solid State Research, TU Berlin) receives the Ernst Eckhard Koch Prize from Mathias Richter for his outstanding dissertation. © Screenshot Digital User Meeting
The Ernst Eckhard Koch Prize went to Dr. Martin Bluschke, Max Planck Institute for Solid State Research in Stuttgart, who completed his doctorate in 2019 at the Technical University of Berlin. The title of his dissertation is: "Resonant x ray scattering studies of collective electronic states in cuprates and nickelates controlled by isovalent chemical substitution and epitaxial integration". Bluschke has been studying so-called collective states in solids at BESSY II, which are related to the phenomenon of superconductivity.
2019
Dr. Simon Krause (University of Groningen, 1st from left) and Dr. Felix Willems (Max Born Institute, 3rd from left) received the Ernst Eckhard Koch Prize 2019 from Prof. Dr. Mathias Richter (Association of Friends of Helmholtz-Zentrum Berlin, 2nd from left). © M. Setzpfand/HZB
On December 5, 2019, during the 11th HZB user meeting, the Association of Friends of Helmholtz-Zentrum Berlin awarded the Ernst Eckhard Koch Prize 2019 to Dr. Simon Krause from the University of Groningen for his work "Negative gas adsorption in flexible metal-organic frameworks", which he defended at the TU Dresden, and to Dr. Felix Willems of the Max Born Institute in Berlin for his work "Ultrafast optical demagnetization dynamics in thin elemental films and alloys: Foundations of and results from helicity-dependent and time-resolved XUV spectroscopy", defended at the TU Berlin. In his work Simon Krause had investigated the gas adsorption behaviour in porous solids. Felix Willems, on the other hand, worked on ultrafast magnetic switching processes and their analysis using spectroscopic methods.
2018
The Ernst Eckhard Koch Prize went to Dr. Viktoriia Saveleva (right) for her work on catalysts. Copyright: M. Setzpfandt/HZB
The Association of Friends of Helmholtz-Zentrum Berlin awarded during the 10th HZB User Meeting on December 6, 2018 the Ernst Eckhard Koch Prize for outstanding doctoral theses in the field of research with synchrotron radiation.
The Ernst Eckhard Koch Prize went to Dr. Viktoriia Saveleva for her doctorate at the University of Strasbourg on in-situ investigations of electrochemical processes using photoemission spectroscopy. Her experiments at BESSY II focused on reactions on catalyst surfaces of ruthenium and iridium during the electrolytic decomposition of water. Saveleva is now a postdoctoral researcher at the Paul Scherrer Institute in Switzerland.
2017
Dr. Nele Thielemann-Kühn (right) together with Prof. Dr. Mathias Richter (left) from the Society of Friends of Helmholtz-Zentrum Berlin during the award ceremony on December 14, 2017 in Berlin-Adlershof. Credit: HZB
The Association of Friends of Helmholtz-Zentrum Berlin awarded during the 9th Joint BER II and BESSY II User Meeting on December 14, 2017 the 27th Ernst Eckhard Koch Prize for outstanding doctoral theses in the field of research with synchrotron radiation. Dr. Nele Thielemann-Kühn was bestowed for her thesis at HZB and Potsdam University on „Optically induced ferro- and antiferromagnetic dynamics in the rare-earth metal dysprosium“.
2016
The Association of Friends of Helmholtz-Zentrum Berlin awarded during the Eighth Joint BER II and BESSY II User Meeting on 8 December 2016 the 26th Ernst Eckhard Koch Prize for outstanding doctoral theses in the field of research with synchrotron radiation.
The prize was shared this year.
Dr. Joachim Robert Gräfe (right) together with Prof. Mathias Richter from the Freundeskreis Helmholtz-Zentrum Berlin e. V. during the conferral of the Ernst Eckhard Koch Prize in Berlin/Adlershof December 8th, 2016 (photo: HZB).
Dr. Joachim Robert Gräfe from the Max Planck Institute for Intelligent Systems in Stuttgart was recognised for his doctoral dissertation “Statische und dynamische Magnetisierungseigenschaften nanoskaliger Überstrukturen” (static and dynamic magnetisation properties of nano-scale superlattices) at the University of Stuttgart. During his doctoral studies he was able to accomplish the first direct mapping and analysis of spin waves, also referred to as magnons, in nanoscale anti-dot lattices with the help of dynamic X-ray microscopy at GHz frequencies. The experiments took place at the BESSY II MAXYMUS microscope.
Dr. Jan Wernecke (left) together with Prof. Wolfgang Gudat from the Freundeskreis Helmholtz-Zentrum Berlin e. V. during the conferral of the Ernst Eckhard Koch Prize in Berlin/Adlershof December 8th, 2016 (photo: HZB).
Dr. Jan Wernecke, who has since joined the IAV company in Gifhorn, was recognised for his doctorial dissertation “When Size Does Matter: Dimensional Metrology of Nanostructured Layers and Surfaces Using X-Rays” at the Technische Universität Berlin. His doctoral studies were carried out in the BESSY II laboratory of the the Physikalisch-Technische Bundesanstalt (PTB), Germany’s national metrology institute. The main task consisted of employing small-angle X-ray scattering for measuring nano-dimensional features on surfaces and thus establish standard metrological data traceable back to the international system of units SI with uncertainties in the range of a few atomic diameters.
2015
Dr. Robert Streubel (right) together with Prof. Mathias Richter from the Society of Friends of Helmholtz-Zentrum Berlin during bestowal of the Ernst Eckhard Koch Prize on December 10, 2015 in Berlin-Adlershof. Photo: Phil Dera/HZB
The Association of Friends of Helmholtz-Zentrum Berlin awarded during the Seventh Joint BER II and BESSY II User Meeting on 10 December 2015 the 25th Ernst Eckhard Koch Prize for outstanding doctoral theses in the field of research with synchrotron radiation:
Dr. Robert Streubel, who has since become a postdoc at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, was honored for his doctoral dissertation entitled “Imaging Spin Textures on Curved Magnetic Surfaces” at Technische Universität Chemnitz that dealt with the investigation of three-dimensional magnetic structures by a new combination of X-ray absorption tomography und photoemission microscopy. The measurements were performed at BESSY II and at the ALS using circularly polarized synchrotron radiation within the framework of research projects of the Leibniz-Institut für Festkörper- und Werkstoffforschung Dresden. Part of the well noticed results have already been published in Nature Communications.
2014
The Association of Friends of Helmholtz-Zentrum Berlin awarded on 4 December 2014 the 24th Ernst Eckhard Koch Prize for outstanding doctoral theses in the field of research with synchrotron radiation. Two junior scientists were recognised this year.
Dr. Markus Ries (left) and Dr. Alex Manuel Frano Pereira (right) together with Prof. Mathias Richter from the Society of Friends of Helmholtz-Zentrum Berlin during bestowal of the 2014 Ernst-Eckhard-Koch-Prize on December 4, 2014 in Berlin-Adlershof.
Dr. Alex Manuel Frano Pereira, who has since become a postdoc at the University of California Berkeley, was honoured for his doctoral dissertation entitled “Ordering Phenomena in Transition Metal-Oxide Heterostructures” at Technische Universität Berlin that dealt with spin and charge density waves in oxides. The results are very topical for the field and are being discussed as exemplary and state-of-the-art in the literature. Dr. Frano himself has been very productive in these discussions and has published in Nature, Science and Physical Review Letters. The works have been cited more than 450 times.
Accelerator physicist Dr. Markus Ries received the award for his work on “Nonlinear Momentum Compaction and Coherent Synchrotron Radiation at the Metrology Light Source” at Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin. The awards committee judged that he made a key contribution to understanding and further development of the operation of storage rings with short variable electron bunches. His work is being incorporated into HZB’s BESSY-VSR project for which Dr. Ries is continuing his research as a postdoc.
2013
Dr. Katharina Diller (left) and Dr. Karine Fernanda dos Santos (right) together with Prof. Mathias Richter from the Society of Friends of Helmholtz-Zentrum Berlin during bestowal of the 2013 Ernst-Eckhard-Koch-Prize on December 5, 2013 in Berlin-Adlershof. Picture: HZB / M. Setzpfand.
The 2013 Ernst-Eckhard-Koch-Prize granted by the Society of Friends of Helmholtz-Zentrum Berlin has been bestowed upon Dr. Katharina Diller for her doctoral thesis ‘Free-base and metalated porphyrins on metal surfaces - a systematic X-ray spectroscopy and density functional theory investigation’ and Dr. Karine Fernanda dos Santos for her doctoral thesis ‘Structural and functional studies of the spliceosomal RNP remodelling enzyme Brr2’.
Katharina Diller was born in 1985. She received her Diploma in Physics at TU München in 2010. For her doctoral work, she joined the chair ‘Molecular Nanoscience and Chemical Physics of Interfaces’ at TU München of Prof. Johannes V. Barth who also supervised her thesis. Finished in 2013, the work has already generated considerable impact and refers to a combined experimental and theoretical XPS and NEXAFS study on metallo-organic hybrid systems and interfaces with applications in nano- and optoelectronics. Most of the experiments were performed at BESSY II.
Karine dos Santos was born in 1984 in Brazil. She received her Bachelor of Science in Biology at the Campinas State University in 2005 and her Master of Science in Microbiology at the São Paulo State University in 2010. For her doctoral work, she came to Germany to join the group of Prof. Markus C. Wahl at the Max Planck Institute for Biophysical Chemistry in Göttingen who also supervised her thesis at the Göttingen University. Finished in 2012, the already highly recognized work refers to the structure and the dynamics of a complex enzyme for the protein biosynthesis with impact on medical research. The diffraction experiments were performed at BESSY II and PETRA III.
2012
Dr. Daniil Evtushinsky (left) and Prof. Mathias Richter during bestowal of the 2012 Ernst-Eckhard-Koch-Prize on December 13, 2012 in Berlin-Adlershof.
The 2012 Ernst-Eckhard-Koch-Prize has been bestowed upon Dr. Daniil Evtushinsky for his PhD thesis ‘Physical properties of layered superconductors from angle-resolved photoemission spectroscopy (ARPES)’. Daniil Evtushinsky was born in 1984 in Kiev (Ukraine). He received his Master of Science in Applied Mathematics and Physics at the Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology in 2007. For his PhD work he moved, then, to the Leibniz Institute for Solid State and Materials Research in Dresden (IFW Dresden), where he has gained considerable expertise in the field of evaluation and interpretation of angle-resolved photoelectron spectroscopy studies. The experiments were performed at the synchrotron radiation facility BESSY II. The PhD thesis was supervised by Prof. Bernd Büchner and Dr. Sergey V. Borisenko and defended in 2011 at the Dresden University of Technology. The work has already led to numerous publications in high-ranking journals.