Gerhard Materlik Receives X-ray Award from the University of Würzburg

Congratulations to Prof. Dr. Gerhard Materlik. In December, the University of Würzburg honored the physicist with the X-ray award presented by the university. Materlik - associate director of HASYLAB until 2001 - received the prize, endowed with 5000 Euro, for his outstanding scientific work. For the first time since 1959 and on occasion of their 600th birthday, the Würzburg University revived the X-ray award.

Prof. Materlik

X-ray award laureate Gerhard Materlik (center) and Theodor Berchem, president of the Würzburg University (left) and Albrecht Graf von Ingelheim, chairman of the Würzburg University Community.
Foto: Emmerich

The laureate can look retrospectively on his international career. As head of HASYLAB and later on as an associate director, he played an important role helping to build, expand and operate the Hamburg Synchrotron Radiation Laboratory HASYLAB, and he was also coordinator of the TESLA X-ray laser project (X-FEL). Previously he had gained experience in the European Synchrotron Radiation Facility in Grenoble, collaborating to build this facility since the beginning of 1978. Moreover, he was a member of an advisory board for the planning and construction of synchrotrons worldwide.

In the middle of 2001, Gerhard Materlik was appointed as the first head of DIAMOND, a new synchrotron light source near Oxford, England, projected to go into operation in 2006.