Current Press Releases

Klaus Blaum, award winner of the Otto Hahn Prize 2021.
© Stefanie Aumiller / Max Planck Society

Our division director Prof. Klaus Blaum has been selected to receive the Otto Hahn Prize 2021. Klaus Blaum is honored for his outstanding research in the field of precision physics and measurement technology that expands our knowledge of the fundamental properties of the constituents of the matter surrounding us.

Since 2005, the Otto Hahn Prize  has been awarded jointly by the City of Frankfurt am Main , the Gesellschaft Deutscher Chemiker  (GDCh, German Chemical Society) and the Deutsche Physikalische Gesellschaft  (DPG, German Physical Society). The prize is named after the Frankfurt-born scientist Otto Hahn, who discovered nuclear fission and won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1944.
According to its statute, the Otto Hahn Prize serves to "promote science, especially in the fields of chemistry, physics and applied engineering through the recognition of outstanding scientific achievements". It consists of a gold medal and a prize of 50,000 euros. The prize is awarded every two years with a ceremony in St. Paul’s Church, Frankfurt am Main, Germany, alternating each time between physics and chemistry.

The award ceremony of the Otto Hahn Prize 2021 will take place on November 5, 2021 in St. Paul’s Church, Frankfurt am Main, Germany.

We cordially congratulate Klaus Blaum on receiving this prestigious scientific award.

Please read more in the following press releases:

• MPIK Heidelberg 
• City of Frankfurt am Main 
• German Chemical Society 
• German Physical Society 

Our former division member Dr. Jonas Karthein has been awarded the Dissertation Prize 2021 of the Matter and Cosmos Section  (SMuK) of the German Physical Society (DPG).
The goal of the SMuK Dissertation Prize  is to acknowledge the outstanding research within the scope of a dissertation and its excellent presentation in a lecture. The prize is endowed with 1.500.

Jonas Karthein received the award for his PhD thesis and the presentation entitled "Next-Generation Mass Spectrometry of Exotic sotopes and Isomers". The prize was awarded on the SMuK Online Meeting 2021 .
The cumulative dissertation comprises the transition of the high-precision mass spectrometer ISOLTRAP at ISOLDE/CERN from the well-established Penning-trap mass spectrometry (PTMS) technique, ToF-ICR (Time-of-Flight Ion Cyclotron Resonance), to the next-generation PTMS technique, called PI-ICR (Phase-Imaging Ion Cyclotron Resonance).

We cordially congratulate Jonas on receiving this distinction of his scientific work.

Further information:

• Press release of MPIK 
• Full text of PhD thesis: PuRe , heiDOK  and CERN Document Server 

Our division member Stefan Dickopf receives the Otto Haxel Prize of the Department of Physics and Astronomy of Heidelberg University for his excellent master thesis entitled "Design, installation and characterisation of a microwave transmission line for driving the transitions of the ³He⁺ hyperfine structure in a Penning trap".
The prize for the best experimental master thesis is endowed with 500 €.

We cordially congratulate Stefan on receiving this distinction of his scientific work.

Further information:

• Full text of master thesis: PuRe 

Our Max Planck Fellow Professor Achim Schwenk  of TU Darmstadt has been awarded a prestigious Advanced Grant  by the European Research Council (ERC).
His research project "Exploring the Universe through Strong Interactions" (EUSTRONG) will be funded with around 2.3 million euros over a period of 5 years. The aim of the EUSTRONG project is to investigate the Strong Interaction, one of the four fundamental forces of nature, in the universe.

This is already the second ERC grant for Achim Schwenk. We cordially congratulate him on receiving this distinction!

Please read more in the press releases of the MPIK , the TU Darmstadt  and the ERC .