X-ray Award for Jena Laser Physicist Dr. Jan Rothhardt

For the first time, there is an "X-ray Award" that you can "touch." The miniature of the Gießen X-ray monument was produced using the art casting process. (Photo: JLU/Katrina Friese)

X-ray Award Winner Dr. Jan Rothhard at work in the laboratory. (Photo: Walter Oppel)

The renowned Röntgen Prize of the Justus Liebig University Giessen (JLU) is awarded this year to physicist Dr. Jan Rothhardt from the Helmholtz Institute Jena and Friedrich Schiller University Jena. The prize, endowed with 15,000 euros, was awarded on Friday, November 27, 2020, during the academic ceremony — which was held exclusively digitally due to Corona. Pfeiffer Vacuum and the Ludwig Schunk Foundation jointly donated the prize money of 15,000 euros. Precisely in this year, when the awardee could not come to Giessen in person, there was for the first time a "touchable" prize: On the occasion of the X-ray Year, JLU and the donors commissioned a miniature of the well-known Giessen X-ray monument. In memory of Nobel laureate Wilhelm Conrad Röntgen, who was a professor in Giessen from 1879 to 1888, JLU has been awarding the prize since 1960.

The 39-year-old junior research group leader Dr. Jan Rothhardt received the award in recognition of his outstanding contributions to the field of laser technology, particularly for the development and application of laser sources for extreme ultraviolet (XUV) radiation and soft X-ray radiation. Dr. Jan Rothhardt has intensively engaged with applications of these laser systems and was able to demonstrate both computationally and experimentally for the first time that efficient conversion into the XUV spectral range is also possible with high-power lasers of high pulse repetition frequency. The XUV sources developed by him will enable unique laser spectroscopy experiments at heavy ion storage rings worldwide. Quantum electrodynamics (QED), relativistic effects, but also nuclear properties and ultrafast processes are at the center of these interdisciplinary experiments.

Dr. Rothhardt studied physics in Jena and earned his doctorate in 2011. The internationally renowned laser physicist has been leading a junior research group at Helmholtz Institute Jena since 2014 and is the author and co-author of nearly 70 publications in scientific journals. He regularly receives excellent evaluations from students for his lectures and seminars at Friedrich Schiller University Jena. In addition, he is involved in inspiring high school students for laser technology through a special experimental lecture. In his free time, he apparently strives for even greater heights: Jan Rothhardt was world champion in gliding in 2016.