Press Release: The University Invests 80 Million in Technology Environment for Advanced Research Equipment

“With this investment we take a great deal of national responsibility. We also uphold a strong Uppsala tradition within the development of accelerators and scientific instruments. Several of the Nobel prizes associated with Uppsala University are in various ways related to instrumentation”, says Johan Tysk, Vice-rector of the Disciplinary Domain of Science and Technology.

In the FREIA-laboratory researchers, engineers and technicians work with development and testing of equipment needed for research experiments at large research facilities, such as the particle physics laboratory CERN in Switzerland and the neutron source ESS and the synchrotron radiation facility MAX IV, both in Lund. The work is conducted on the basis of a vision to be able to carry out new experiments that advance science. This demands access to great knowledge and a key to the successful activity in Uppsala is the nearness to the university’s other research environments. The developed instruments then make it possible for researchers to examine everything from the most fundamental properties of matter to the study of the function of individual protein molecules.

Uppsala University has successfully and often in strong competition received development assignments from the large research facilities. To secure Uppsala University’s long term competitiveness within instrumentation and accelerator development, investments are now made at several levels within the university.

Part of the effort is the recruitment of Professor Herman Dürr from Stanford who in his research focuses on development of methods and instruments using very short pulses from, among other things, modern so called x-ray laser sources. The methods he develops have, among other things, gained interest in energy research where studies with very high time resolution make it possible to better understand and counteract unwanted energy losses in the conversion between light and electricity in solar cells.

“Uppsala University is internationally known for its development of new scientific methods which are possible only with the instruments developed by researchers at the university. For a person with a strong interest in being at the forefront of research it is absolutely crucial to be able to build his own instruments and not be referred to what others can deliver. To place my activity at the Department of Physics and Astronomy at Uppsala University makes it possible for me to be able to contribute with the development of new methods and instruments to the most interesting research facilities over the world”, says Hermann Dürr, Professor of instrumentation and accelerators at the FREIA-laboratory.

For more information contact:
Johan Tysk, Vice-rector, Disciplinary Domain of Science and Technology, phone: 070-8950107, Johan.Tysk@math.uu.se
Olof Karis, Head of the Department of Physics and Astronomy, 070-4250329, prefekt@physics.uu.se

Read more about the FREIA-laboratory.
Read more about Nobel prizes associated with Uppsala University.

Linda Koffmar
Translation: Johan Wall