Pfeiffer Vacuum establishes FAIR-GSI Doctoral Award 2019

Daniel Sälzer (left), Member of the Executive Board of Pfeiffer Vacuum and Professor Dr. Karlheinz Langanke (right), Research Director of FAIR and GSI, present the doctoral award to Dr. Kristian König. Photo: G. Otto, GSI Helmholtz Centre for Heavy Ion Research.

- Pfeiffer Vacuum as well as GSI and FAIR jointly award the Doctoral Prize
- Award for dissertation "Laser-Based High-Voltage Metrology with ppm Accuracy"
- Vacuum indispensable for scientific investigations

Asslar, November 2019. Dr. Kristian König received the FAIR-GSI Doctoral Award 2019 for his dissertation on the topic "Laser-Based High-Voltage Metrology with ppm Accuracy." The GSI Helmholtzzentrum für Schwerionenforschung is a physics research center in Darmstadt. Currently, the international accelerator facility FAIR (Facility for Antiproton and Ion Research) is being constructed there. The prize is endowed with 1,000 euros and is donated by Pfeiffer Vacuum. Professor Dr. Karlheinz Langanke, Research Director of FAIR and GSI, and Daniel Sälzer, member of the management of Pfeiffer Vacuum GmbH, presented the award during the GSI colloquium.

Dr. König's dissertation was completed at the Technical University of Darmstadt in the working group of Professor Dr. Wilfried Nörtershäuser. Precise measurement of high voltages of several 10,000 volts is important for many areas of technology. Precision experiments in physics sometimes require accuracies up to one millionth of the measured voltage (1 ppm = 1 part per million). At a voltage of 10,000 volts, this corresponds to an uncertainty of 10 millivolts.

Dr. König has succeeded in measuring such voltages precisely with the help of a laser. To do this, ions are accelerated with the voltage to be measured, and then the influence of their velocity on the "color" (the frequency) of the light emitted by the ions is measured. This exploits the optical Doppler effect. It can be determined with lasers extremely precisely, but the properties of the ion beam and the laser beam must be very well controlled. Dr. König has developed an apparatus that allows him to measure voltages with an accuracy of 5 ppm. This is 20 times more precise than previous attempts with this technique. Such precise measurements are needed, for example, to determine the velocity of ions in storage rings at GSI and in the future at FAIR, which is crucial for precision experiments.

“The results are particularly fascinating because the physics around neutron-rich nuclei and neutron stars is one of the research focuses of the new accelerator facility FAIR,” said Professor Dr. Karlheinz Langanke. “The excellent research opportunities at the GSI accelerator facility and the development of FAIR attract many young scientists from around the world to our research institution. They make important contributions to the development of new accelerators and detectors with their innovative ideas.”

Daniel Sälzer, member of the management of Pfeiffer Vacuum, congratulated the awardee: “We are pleased that the realization of the FAIR project is gaining momentum. However, such unique flagship projects can only be realized through commitment and outstanding work. We can only pay the highest respect to such dedication to research and science.”

Pfeiffer Vacuum and the GSI Helmholtzzentrum für Schwerionenforschung have a long-standing partnership. Pfeiffer Vacuum's vacuum solutions have been successfully used there for decades.

The FAIR-GSI Doctoral Award is given annually for the best dissertation of the previous year, supported by GSI within the framework of strategic partnerships with the universities in Darmstadt, Frankfurt, Gießen, Heidelberg, Jena, Mainz, or through the research and development program. Currently, over 300 doctoral students are working on dissertations related to GSI and FAIR within the Helmholtz Graduate School for Hadron and Ion Research (HGS-HIRe).