Public Relations

Plasma physics events for high school students

The project week for high school students at Ruhr University Bochum is an educational program of the CRC 1316, the Faculty of Physics and Astronomy at the RUB and of zdi. The student project week takes place twice a year during the Easter vacations and during the autumn vacations.

From April 3rd to 6th, the project week was hosted for over 60 female students in grades 8 to 10. The girls chose between four workshops: plasma physics, astronomy, physics in medicine and House of the Future. The project “From Plasma to Gold Layers” allows the students to gain an insight into the generation and applications of plasmas. Using the sputter coater and professional laboratory equipment, the students could deposit and examine gold layers themselves. During the project week, the students attended a lecture given by Prof. Dr Judith Golda on “hands-on plasmas – between material science and medicine“, and visited laboratories and the Planetarium Bochum. On the closing day, the results of the students’ research were presented in a poster session, followed by a quiz and lunch together. The next project week Autumn for female and male students in grades 8 and 9 will take place from 9th to 13th October.

The Faculty of Physics enables students to complete a school internship in Physics.
From March 27th to 31st, we welcomed two interns from grade 9. After a short introduction to plasma physics, the students worked on the sputter coater. They examined the coated samples. For this purpose, they determined the transmission with a spectrometer, the layer thickness with the profilometer and the conductivity. The interns also gained experience in handling data and in data evaluation. The goal of the internship is to also give an impression of laboratory work and current research. Therefore, doctoral students, bachelor’s and master’s students guided the interns through the labs and presented their experiments. The interns also visited the NRW state competition “Jugend forscht”, which took place at the Ruhr University Bochum from 27th to 29th March.

The “mobile plasma workshop” took place for the first time on 5th June. Our plasma truck visited an 11th-grade physics class at school. In the beginning, the students watched a short movie and received basic knowledge about plasmas and their applications. After a short quiz, they worked on the experiments in smaller groups. The students examined the light emitted by plasmas with an optical spectrometer and observed how plasmas can be influenced by electric and magnetic fields. Information on the experiments on the students' iPads guided the workshop. The workshop was a success and the students showed great interest. As an advanced course in physics, they already had a good understanding of electric and magnetic fields. However, plasma physics is not part of the school curriculum. Through the students’ feedback, we have gained insights on how to improve our workshop going forward.






Rolduc

Summer Meeting CRC 1316

From June 19 to 21, 2023, the CRC 1316 Summer Meeting has been held at Rolduc Abbey. The meeting was a great success and was accompanied by a lively participation of all stakeholders.

The event provided an excellent opportunity for scientists to present and discuss their research results. 

In addition to the lectures, there were also many opportunities for informal talks and discussions. These discussions led to an intensification of collaboration and offered participants the opportunity to establish new contacts and deepen existing relationships.

Rolduc Abbey provided an excellent backdrop for the meeting. The historic buildings and idyllic surroundings contributed to a relaxed and productive atmosphere.

Conference

WE Heraeus Seminar "Non thermal plasmas for sustainable chemistry"

The SFB 1316 was involved in the organization of the 785 WE Heraeus Seminar "Non thermal plasmas for sustainable chemistry" that was held in Bad Honnef 22.4.-27.4.2023. The meeting was organized by Yiguang Yu (Princeton), Tomo Nozaki (Tokyo Tech), Annemie Bogaerts (U Antwerp), and A. von Keudell (RUB, SFB 1316). The SFB 1316 contributed with two invited presentations and 6 posters. The seminar with 80 attendees provided a broad overview on the field and critical discusssions about the challenges and potential of plasma methods for sustainable chemistry. 

Guests

Visit of Prof. Katsuyuki Takahashi

Assoc. Prof. Dr. Katsuyuki Takahashi (Iwate University, Japan) visited the Chair for Atomic and Plasma Physics (Prof. U. Czarnetzki).

During his stay Prof. Takahashi visited the laboratories of many groups at RUB that are working within the CRC 1316. In a seminar talk Prof. Takahashi presented the various research topics that are covered by his group and the group of Prof. Koichi Takaki (Iwate University). These include pulsed non-thermal plasmas for enviromental and agricultural applications among others. The overlap in many of the topics could provide fruitful grounds for future collaborations between the Ruhr University Bochum and the Iwate University.

Internationalization

DPG spring meeting

At the annually DPG (German Physical Society) meeting, the plasma groups from RUB campus had many contributions during this event. At least eleven oral presentations including one invited talk as well as eleven poster presentations were given by CRC 1316 members.

 

 

 

 

 

CRC meetings

Internal exchange in Ulm

From 1.3. to 3.3. the CRC 316 meeting took place in Ulm. Besides the scientific exchange about transient atmospheric pressure plasma, an electrochemistry workshop was held at the University of Ulm. In addition, experts from other fields were invited.

Thanks to Angela Bayler from centrotherm international AG, Luca Vialetto from Christian-Albrechts-Universität zu Kiel, and Peter Hartmann from Wigner Research Centre for Physics in Budapest.

 

 

Research Data Management

2nd Workshop on FAIR data in Plasma Science

We are happy to announce the second workshop on research data management in Plasma Science. NP, CAU and RUB are now organizing the 2nd Workshop on FAIR Data in Plasma Science, which will take place from May 3-4, 2023 at the Event Center at Ruhr-Universität Bochum, see also https://www.plasma-mds.org/ws-fair-data-plasma-science-2.html. 

The workshop is aimed at researchers at different stages for exchange on the topic of data management. Topics of the workshop are electronic lab journals, practical questions in the daily handling of research data management systems as well as the presentation of already established solutions. In addition, an interactive part is planned, which will deal with the question of how to get standards into the laboratory. Here, all participants are invited to contribute their ideas and your practical expertise.

 

Award

Martin Muhler receives Alwin Mittasch Award 2023

Prof. Dr. Martin Muhler was awarded the Alwin Mittasch Prize 2023 for his "fundamental contributions to the cross-scale understanding of the mode of action of catalyst materials in chemical reactions for future-oriented technologies". This award is given to researchers for outstanding achievements in the field of catalyst research by German Society for Catalysis. The award will be handed over in Weimar on March 16, 2023.

Prof. Dr. Martin Muhler holds the Chair of Technical Chemistry at Ruhr-Universität and is a board member of SFB 1316, PI in project A7 "Plasma catalysis for conversion of volatile organic compounds (VOC)", as well as a member of the MGK.

Company visit

Visit of the company Plasmatreat

The lecture "Introduction to plasma physics II" and Bachelor, Master and PhD students of the chair EP2 and the group Plasma Interface Physics visited the company Plasmatreat in Steinhagen near Bielefeld. The company excels in the production of atmospheric pressure plasma jets for polymer functionalization.

 

 Outreach

 Kick-off event of the Science Year 2023

On Saturday, 11.02.2023, the kick-off event of the Science Year 2023 "Our Universe" took place. The SFB 1316 was represented with a booth at the Zeiss Planetarium Bochum.

Besides live experiments, there was a varied program with a plasma quiz, coloring pictures and slide show. As live experiments, the plasma sphere and plasma mass were presented as hands-on experiments, and the plasma speaker and COST jet were shown for demonstration. Here, the new portable COST-Jet could be used for the first time outside the university. Thanks to its construction on a plate with gas supply, generator and holders for optical fibre and spectrometer, another experiment and authentic diagnostics from the laboratory can now be shown at events.

A big thank you to the many helping hands and all interested people who visited us!

Honour

Henrik van Impel‘s outstanding Bachelor thesis

Congratulations to Henrik van Impel, who won the student award of Ruhr University Bochum with his bachelor thesis "Diagnostics of atomic oxygen in a micro-cavity plasma reactor". He received his certificate during the yearly celebration of the University hosted by the Rector of the University.

In his bachelor thesis, Mr. van Impel used actinometry to investigate the formation of atomic oxygen in a plasma array reactor. With his finding, he made an important contribution to project A6 in CRC 1316.