The facility offers a broad research spectrum of international standing focusing on three main areas: accelerator development, construction and operation; photon science; particle and astroparticle physics.

Short facts

  • A publicly funded national research centre
  • Established in Hamburg,1959
  • Locations: Hamburg and Zeuthen (Brandenburg)
  • Budget: 192 million euro (Hamburg: 173 million; Zeuthen: 19 million)
  • Financing: 90% on the national level (German Federal Ministry of Education and Research); 10% on the state level (City of Hamburg and Federal State of Brandenburg)
  • Employees: approximately 2000, including 650 scientists working in the fields of accelerator operation, research and development
  • Guest scientists: more than 3000 from over 40 countries each year
  • Training: more than 100 young people in commercial and technical vocations
  • Young scientists: more than 700 diploma students, doctoral candidates and postdocs

Which materials can be studied at DESY?

  • Semiconductors
  • Catalysts
  • Biomolecules
  • Biomaterials
  • Polymers
  • Nanomaterials
  • Electronic materials

Which properties can be investigated?

  • Shape, structure and form
  • Composition
  • Chemical reactions and dynamics
  • Trace analysis

Under which conditions can material be studied?

  • Liquid, solid and gaseous phases
  • Surfaces as well as bulk material
  • Crystalline or amorphous
  • At a range of different temperatures, pressures and in various atmopheres

Available techniques

Nuclear resonance scattering, micro- and nanofocus X-ray scattering (MINAXS), spatially resolved XRF and EXAFS, high-resolution XRD, resonant scattering & diffraction, hard X-ray photoemission, X-ray photon correlation spectroscopy and coherent imaging experiments, measurements in extreme conditions, Life Sciences applications such as small-angle scattering, macro-molecular crystallography and bio-imaging.

Some of the clients today from the life sciences, food science, chemicals, metal, dermatology and packaging industries: Proctor and Gamble, Saint-Gobain, DSM, Beiersdorf, BAT, BASF, Starc, Bell Packaging, Phillips and Degussa.

Contact the Science Link contact person at DESY, desy@science-link.eu

Visit DESY's web site

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