PETRA IV: Vision launched at the funding phase kick-off

CeXS was invited to participate in DESY's Round Table Talks "Science in Focus: PETRA IV - New Dimensions in Research and Applications", which was held in Hamburg on 13 September.  

The project concerning the upgrade of PETRA III to a fourth generation synchrotron has been ongoing for several years now. This event marked the kick-off the project's funding phase, to a wider set of societal actors, launching the vision for PETRA IV.

Harald Reichert, the recently appointed PETRA IV project leader, presented the familiar instrument vision of PETRA IV as a brilliant, superpowerful, microscope. Additionally, a new aspect of the vision for PETRA IV was also presented: democratising research use of synchrotron instruments. That is, in addition to discovery research, PETRA IV will also enable a wider range of non-experts to conduct research at PETRA IV. The aim of this is to facilitate a more rapid rate of innovations for solving societal problems, especially with regards life sciences, energy and sustainable materials.

Three panel discussions then took place, with panelists comprising leading academics and representatives from industry. The sustainable materials panel addressed how PETRA IV could accelerate the pace of scientific discoveries and innovation potential. In addition to investigating a wider range of materials and in situ/in operando processes, the possibilities of addressing correlations between dynamic processes in sub-elements of complex systems was considered to be important for both scientific discovery and innovations.

The third panel discussed AI - assessing the roles that AI could play as a technology enabling the democratisation of access to PETRA IV. The panelists considered the widespread adoption of machine learning by many scientists as an example of a democratisation process that has already occurred. At the future PETRA IV, there is the ambition to automate more experimental setups and, importantly, data analysis.

After the panels, Helmut Dosch then presented the project plan for PETRA IV.

The event then moved to Hamburg Town Hall, where the Katharina Fegebank, the second Mayor and Senator for Science, Research, Equality and the Boroughs, welcomed the event's participants.

Participants also had an opportunity to mingle.

CeXS are actively engaging with DESY to safeguard Swedish investments in PETRA III as well as elaborate on the design of a novel multi focus instrument and the associated science case.