Jongwoo and his team from Seoul are “friendly users”. This name is given to scientists who do their experiments on a pristine machine, before it goes into user operation. Back in Korea we called them to hear more about their special beamtime and what it means for their battery research.
Who are you and how did you discover BESSY II?
I am Jongwoo Lim, assistant professor at the department of chemistry at Seoul National University. My research group “Battery and Energy Research Lab” counts many talented young scientists. In 2018 a colleague from the Max Planck Society invited me to give a talk and, on this occasion, I visited BESSY II. Back in Seoul I wanted my team to discover this amazing science environment.
Getting beamtime at BESSY II, how does this work?
The competition for beamtime is very strong, many scientists want to come to BESSY II! We send in a proposal and were rejected several times. Finally, after 2 years we got the green light for some beamtime at MAXYMUS, the beamline of the Max Planck Institute for Intelligent Systems (more below). And on top of that, beamline scientist Markus asked us if we were interested to use and test MYSTIIC (Microscope for x-raY Scanning Transmission In-situ Imaging of Catalysts). This new microscope will go into operation in Spring 2022.
Read more on the HZB blog science site
Image: Jongwoo’s team from Korea at BESSY II