Manfred Faubel receives innovation award

The Friends of Helmholtz-Zentrum Berlin have awarded experimental physicist Manfred Faubel from the Max Planck Institute for Dynamics and Self-Organization (MPI-DS) the Innovation Prize Synchrotron Radiation 2024. The prize, which is awarded annually, recognizes his outstanding innovations in the further development of photoelectron spectroscopy

Manfred Faubel was already experimenting with molecular beams in the 1970s. He developed a method that is now used in numerous large-scale devices: A very thin jet of water, only a fraction of the thickness of a human hair, is used to measure the surface of individual molecules, such as proteins, in a high vacuum. These liquid jets have since expanded the research field of solid-state physics into the area of electrolyte solutions and biologically active molecules in a natural environment - thus enabling a better understanding of molecular interaction processes.

Bernd Winter, group leader at the Fritz Haber Institute of the Max Planck Society, was also honored with the Innovation Award. In his group, Winter investigates molecular interactions in water and has developed new spectroscopic technologies for this purpose. Gerard Meijer, Director of the Department of Molecular Physics at the Fritz Haber Institute, gave the laudatory speech for the two prizewinners and emphasized the importance of their inventions for liquid jet photoelectron spectroscopy. With their pioneering work and remarkable development of instrumentation, Manfred Faubel and Bernd Winter have created a new, rapidly growing field of research.

The Synchrotron Radiation Innovation Prize is endowed with 4,000 euros and was awarded on December 11, 2024 in Berlin.