Presentation of the Bjørn H. Wiik Prize 2002

On Thursday, November 7, Dr. Margret Becker-Wiik presented the Bjørn H. Wiik Prize 2002 to HASYLAB physicist Dr. Thomas Möller.

According to the committee electing the winner, the distinction acknowledges that under the leadership of Thomas Möller, the first and outstanding scientific experiment with the free-electron laser was carried out at DESY. For the first time with the TTF-FEL, an international team of scientists has studied the interaction of matter with intense soft X-ray radiation, emitted from a FEL on extremely short timescales, using Xenon-clusters.

Since 2000, the Bjørn H. Wiik Prize is presented every two years. It is financed by the proceeds of the donations received on occasion of the death of Bjørn Wiik (1937 - 1999, chairman of the DESY Directorate 1993 - 99). The purpose of the prize is to acknowledge outstanding contributions to the advancement of research programs or technical development projects at DESY.

(Thomas Möller has been the moving spirit of the planning, the development and the realization of the experiment and he also gave the decisive impulse to the interpretation of the data. Therewith, he did all the preparatory work for the scientific investigation with the future TESLA X-ray laser.)