Christian Schroer is leading the science programme of the synchrotron radiation source PETRA III at DESY in Hamburg and is professor for X-ray nanoscience and X-ray optics at the University of Hamburg. His main field of research is X-ray microscopy and X-ray optics that has wide range of applications in physics, chemistry, the life, materials and geosciences, as well as in nanotechnology. He made his doctoral studies in mathematical physics at the Research Centre Jülich (doctoral degree at the University of Cologne in 1995). After a visit as postdoctoral fellow to the University of Maryland, he worked as a research and teaching associate at RWTH Aachen University in the field of X-ray optics and microscopy. Finishing his habilitation in 2004, he joined DESY in Hamburg as a staff scientist. From 2006 to 2014, he was professor for structural physics of condensed matter at Technische Universität Dresden, before he moved back to Hamburg to take on his current position. As lead scientist of PETRA III, he works on the strategic development of the facility. In particular, he lead the development of the science case and the conceptual design of PETRA IV, DESY's ultra-low emittance source. As X-ray microscopist, he is working on DESY's imaging strategy and is cofounder and speaker of Helmholtz Imaging, a platform of the Helmholtz Incubator on Information and Data Science. His scientific group develops X-ray microscopy at synchrotron radiation sources and X-ray free-electron lasers.
The wide range of X-ray analytical techniques available at modern synchrotron radiation sources can reveal information on the composition, the (atomic) structure, and the chemical, magnetic, and electronic states of matter. Their high brightness allows to precisely define the states of the probing light, enabling high-precision measurements in the space and energy domain. This makes synchrotron radiation an ideal tool to understand quantum materials and probe complex systems and study their emergence on a large range of length scales. The new fourth generation of synchrotron radiation sources will enhance the brightness by several orders of magnitude, effectively making them powerful in-situ/operando microscopes for the study of biological, chemical, and physical processes. They can thus help design novel materials solutions for solving the grand challenges of our time.
[1] C. G. Schroer, et al., PETRA IV: the ultralow-emittance source project at DESY. J. Synchrotron Radiat. 25, 1277–1290 (2018).
[2] C. G. Schroer, et al., PETRA IV Conceptual Design Report. 1–280 (2019), URL: https://bib-pubdb1.desy.de/record/426140/files/DESY-PETRAIV-Conceptual-Design-Report.pdf, DOI: 10.3204/PUBDB-2019-03613.