New analysis laboratory for the Ruhr Innovation Lab
- Research
Ina Brandes, Minister for Culture and Science of the state of North Rhine-Westphalia, said at the handover ceremony: "We are consistently investing the money from the North Rhine-Westphalia Plan for Good Infrastructure in the major topics of the future and the outstanding facilities at our universities. In the globally unique analysis laboratory, scientists are developing sustainable materials that will be found in everyday products in all areas of life. At the same time, we are creating the best working conditions for the researchers of the Ruhr Innovation Lab, the planned excellence network of TU Dortmund University and Ruhr-Universität Bochum. Because excellent research and teaching need an excellent infrastructure."
Around 45 million euros from the state government's "North Rhine-Westphalia Plan for Good Infrastructure" investment package will be used to build the lab. TU Dortmund University is contributing its own share of 4.6 million euros. Existing infrastructure is to be used sustainably. As Dortmund's DELTA electron storage ring facility will be decommissioned as planned at the end of 2026 after more than 30 years of successful use, the building can be redeveloped for future research tasks. Ten new individual laboratories will be created here, whose large-scale equipment and facilities will be available to the Ruhr Innovation Lab working groups in Dortmund and Bochum.
AI-driven materials research
Scientists from TU Dortmund University and Ruhr-Universität Bochum are working together to drive innovation in materials science in one of four excellent research areas at the Ruhr Innovation Lab: they are using data-driven methods and artificial intelligence to develop new materials with special functionalities. These are urgently needed, for example as low-loss superconductors or for energy conversion processes in photovoltaics. Materials that are particularly promising in the prediction models are elaborately synthesized and then analysed using laser spectroscopy.
The new analysis laboratory will enable such a high throughput that the results can be fed directly back into the refined prediction and adapted synthesis. This creates a continuous "feedback loop" that allows the materials to quickly reach a quality that makes them relevant for further basic scientific investigations and, above all, for applications.
"In the Ruhr Innovation Lab, we are jointly planning research infrastructures and combining the strengths of both universities in the field of materials science in order to bring novel materials from basic research to application more quickly. For digital technologies, for example, our society needs new semiconductors made from raw materials that are readily available on the global market in the long term," said Prof. Martin Paul, Rector of Ruhr-Universität Bochum. "The new analytical laboratory can make an important contribution here. It will provide our scientists with an internationally outstanding range of laser analysis methods. External users could also benefit from the new facilities in the future, which we would like to expand into a European reference laboratory in the future," said Prof. Manfred Bayer, Rector of TU Dortmund University.
Infrastructure for cutting-edge international research
The new joint laboratory is located at the Dortmund Department of Physics and the DAEDALUS research center, which bundles the expertise in the field of spectroscopy at TU Dortmund University. Prof. Marc Aßmann and Dr. Jörg Debus are coordinating the establishment of the ten new individual laboratories.
Das neue Analyselabor wird einen solch hohen Durchsatz ermöglichen, dass die Ergebnisse direkt wieder in die verfeinerte Vorhersage und angepasste Synthese eingespeist werden können. Dadurch entsteht ein kontinuierlicher „Feedback-Loop“, durch den die Materialien zügig eine Qualität erreichen können, die sie für weitere grundlagenwissenschaftliche Untersuchungen und vor allem für Anwendungen relevant macht.
„Im Ruhr Innovation Lab planen wir Forschungsinfrastrukturen gemeinsam und kombinieren hier die Stärken beider Universitäten im Bereich der Materialwissenschaften, um neuartige Materialien schneller aus der Grundlagenforschung in die Anwendung zu bringen. Für digitale Technologien benötigt unsere Gesellschaft beispielsweise neue Halbleiter aus Rohstoffen, die auf dem Weltmarkt langfristig gut verfügbar sind“, sagte Prof. Martin Paul, Rektor der Ruhr-Universität Bochum. „Hier kann das neue Analyselabor einen wichtigen Beitrag leisten. Unseren Wissenschaftler*innen wird damit ein international herausragendes Spektrum an Laseruntersuchungsmethoden zur Verfügung stehen. Auch externe Nutzer*innen könnten künftig von den neuen Einrichtungen profitieren, die wir perspektivisch zu einem europäischen Referenzlabor ausbauen möchten“, sagte Prof. Manfred Bayer, Rektor der TU Dortmund.
Infrastruktur für internationale Spitzenforschung
Das neue gemeinsame Labor ist an der Dortmunder Fakultät Physik und am Forschungszentrum DAEDALUS, das die Kompetenzen im Bereich Spektroskopie an der TU Dortmund bündelt, angesiedelt. Den Aufbau der zehn neuen Einzellabore koordinieren Prof. Marc Aßmann und Dr. Jörg Debus.
The Dortmund physicists are not only cooperating with working groups from Ruhr-Universität Bochum (RUB) in the Ruhr Innovation Lab, but also in the Future Energy Materials and Systems Research Center of the University Alliance Ruhr. In this Research Center, which is also funded by the state, RUB, TU Dortmund University and the University of Duisburg-Essen are pooling their cutting-edge international research to develop high-performance functional materials, understand their basic properties, optimize their production processes and ultimately bring them into application. In future, these groups will be able to use the new laboratory for their research.
To the Research Center Future Energy Materials and Systems of the UA Ruhr
Contact for further questions: