The Consul General Felix Schwarz of the Federal Republic of Germany in Sydney and representatives from Hemholz Zentrum Berlin (HZB) in Germany travelled to ANSTO for a special event held in late October-early November, the 3rd ANSTO & Helmholtz-Zentrum Berlin Neutron Training Course.
CEO Shaun Jenkinson welcomed the group to ANSTO and attended the training course dinner.
The Australia Germany Research Network (AGRN) supported the event as a platform to bring German and Australian scientists together. Other supporters of the training course were Scitek, Anton Paar Australia, the Cambridge Crystallographic Data Centre, and the Pawsey Supercomputing Research Centre.
The training course was organised by the Australian Centre for Neutron Scattering in association with HZB with support from the NST Industry and Strategic Engagement Team.
Twenty-five students from Australia, Germany, New Zealand, South Korea, Argentina, USA, and Canada attended the course.
"With the closure of the BER-II Research Reactor in Berlin and the strategic partnership between HZB and ANSTO, the neutron training course was held as a joint event between our organisations," said Dr Jamie Schulz.
"We expect the course to stimulate and engage the next generation of neutron scatters in Australia and Germany and facilitate constructive dialogue between ANSTO and HZB scientists, as well as encouraging future research using neutron scattering," said Dr Schulz.
Consul General Felix Schwarz had a tour of the OPAL reactor the Australian Centre for Neutron Scattering, where he met the team of the Spatz instrument.
The Spatz time-of-flight neutron reflectometer was transferred from BER-II Research Reactor to ANSTO under an agreement with HZB in 2016 and became operational in 2019.
Participants from HZB, who travelled from Berlin, included Professors Bella Lake, Sebastian Risse and Susan Schorr.
The visit included an Australian cultural experience, Barefoot bowls at the South Cronulla Bowling and an Octoberfest themed dinner. The evening finished with the Consul General Felix Schwarz presenting the awards for the training course.
