Translated by OfferLand from the original Traditional Chinese post. View original
Yu Jen Chen
Nov 7, 2024
Inside DESY, Germany 🇩🇪!!! My Experiments at the German Synchrotron Research Center, Shared in Full
Guten Tag~ Moin~ Ich bin Owen! It’s been a long time since I shared my work on OfferLand. This time I want to share my experience doing experiments at DESY, the German synchrotron radiation center, during my master’s thesis. If you’re interested in research institutions abroad, read on!
I’m sure many of you wonder what new experiences graduate research abroad can bring. During this time, with my advisor’s help, I was lucky enough to do short-term experiments at 2 top European synchrotron radiation centers, which broadened my horizons and also added to my résumé and research experience.
In this post I want to share my memories of doing experiments at the German synchrotron radiation center in Hamburg, Germany. What does such a high-end, well-funded and strictly controlled temple of experimentation look like from an angle most people never see? Let me tell you!
For the full write-up with photos, open my article on Medium. Here’s the link
Paperwork before going to DESY
To do experiments at a synchrotron radiation center, you usually need to submit an experiment proposal (Proposal) six months to a year in advance, within the window the institution sets. After review, and once the beamline confirms an open slot in its schedule, you move on to the next steps, such as the lab safety test and applying for short-term housing at the research center.
Anyway, my professor handled almost everything at this stage. And thanks to funding from MaMaSELF, my program covered everything on this trip from transportation to housing, except meals. All I had to do was pass the test, show up on time and follow the schedule. All I can say is, being a student really is a blessing.
About DESY: an introduction and some fun facts
DESY (Deutsches Elektronen-Synchrotron) is a world-renowned research center located in Hamburg and Zeuthen, Germany. It specializes in particle physics, accelerator technology and photon science. Founded in 1959, DESY is a leader in basic research in high-energy physics, materials science, life sciences and other fields using synchrotron radiation, free-electron lasers and particle accelerators. It is part of many international collaborations, including ones involving CERN, and provides cutting-edge infrastructure such as PETRA III and the European XFEL, enabling breakthrough discoveries.
Here’s a quick look at a few of DESY’s research facilities:
PETRA III: one of the world’s most powerful synchrotron radiation sources, used for research in materials science, biology, chemistry and physics.
FLASH: a free-electron laser for soft X-rays and extreme ultraviolet light, enabling ultrafast science and imaging of materials and biological samples.
European XFEL (European X-ray Free-Electron Laser): this international facility produces high-intensity X-rays that can make atomic-scale “movies” of chemical reactions, biomolecular processes and other phenomena in real time.
HERA (Hadron-Elektron-Ringanlage): HERA was once DESY’s major particle accelerator, used for deep inelastic scattering experiments, but it was decommissioned in 2007.
DESY Test Beam Facility: provides beamlines for testing particle detectors, components and accelerator technology.
For this experiment, my main beamline and research center were both at PETRA III.
Paperwork and housing before the experiments at DESY
After a long trip of over 7 hours on the ICE from Munich’s train station, our group finally arrived at Hamburg-Altona. The early start and the long train ride had worn us out, but after a quick lunch we still had to take a bus for about 40 minutes to reach DESY.
At DESY, the first thing to do was Check-In at the security office and get our room keys and access cards for the beamline. Fun fact: for short-term visitors, the guard takes the photo for the card right there with a Polaroid camera, then scans it on the spot to make the ID photo. I have to say, this “traditional approach” is classic German style.
As for housing, I have to say that a large, internationally known research institution is still pretty generous with its single rooms. Of course, you can’t expect German design flair, and it’s understandable that the place looks a bit like a youth hostel. Still, I had my own private bathroom and a single bed, the kitchen was fully equipped, and each person had a fridge compartment and their own dishes. For someone doing experiments at a major research institution for the first time, it really opened my eyes, and I treasured it.
Memories of the experiments at PETRA III
Once I actually got into the beamline, though, my rose-tinted filter came off completely.
I did my experiments at the PETRA III P03 beamline. Since my material is biological, the roughly week-long experiment was all about conodont denticles and mesocrystal. The beam energy at this station, along with techniques such as SAXS/WAXS/USAXS/GISAXS/GIWAXS/GIUSAXS, makes it well suited for further testing and crystal analysis of tooth structures. Because PETRA III P03 is highly flexible in handling different sample environments, its uses span many scientific fields, including sustainable energy, health, information technology, earth and environment, and transportation technology, to tackle major challenges. It’s fair to say it is one of the ideal platforms for studying nanostructures and dynamics in vivo and under in situ/operando conditions.
Our experiment proposal was titled Micro X-ray Diffraction Analysis the Structural Integrity of Conodont denticle, and we mainly used Micro Small Angle Scattering (μSAXS) to observe the microstructure.
And life at the beamline? Well… …not fun at all.
Let me put it this way! Once the sample is mounted and the experiment is running, getting from start to finish usually takes a long time. Depending on what the sample needs, it sometimes has to run all night to collect the data. So before the real measurement, you usually have to check over and over that the sample is positioned precisely, so that when the stage actually rotates, the beamline doesn’t miss the sample or end up off the center point we set.
What makes it trickier is that conodont teeth aren’t as big as human teeth; they’re often measured in micros. As you can imagine, calibration took an enormous amount of effort, and the slightest error could ruin the results. So we often went into the beamline in the morning, didn’t get out until late at night, and then had to cook our own dinner. The longest day ran from 9:00AM to 9:00PM. I really can’t tell you that doing experiments at a synchrotron radiation center is a lot of fun.
Still, spending all that time together, watching funny videos while we waited, sharing our cultures and expanding our scientific knowledge made the waiting less boring. A short trip into Hamburg and a taste of DESY’s work culture also taught me a lot. The process was exhausting, but it really was a rare experience.
For my sightseeing and travel notes on Hamburg, check out the two posts below!