Jumpei Yamada from Osaka University, Japan, and Agostino Marinelli from the National Accelerator Laboratory SLAC, USA, were honoured today at the SRI2024 conference in Hamburg for their important contributions to advance research using free electron X-ray lasers. The SRI conference is regarded as the world's most important exchange forum for experimenters, developers and operators of large X-ray radiation sources.

Jumpei Yamada of Osaka University, Japan, was awarded with the FELs of Europe Award for his work on “Ultimate focusing of X-ray free-electron laser down to 7×7 nm spot for achieving 10²² W/cm² intensity”. Free electron lasers are machines where accelerated electrons are jointly forced to emit a very brilliant light. Particularly, the emitted X-ray light has developed into a unique tool for research: Scientists from all over the world use this extremely brilliant light for their research: from medical research to nanotechnology.

Agostino Marinelli of the National Accelerator Laboratory SLAC, U.S., is awarded with the “Kai-Siegbahn-Prize 2024” for his pioneering development of attosecond X-ray free electron lasers and their application to ultrafast X-ray science at the Linac Coherent Light Source at SLAC. The prize was established in 2009 in honour of Kai Siegbahn, the physics Nobel Prize winner 1981 and founder of the journal “Nuclear Instruments and Methods A” (NIM A).

There had also been prizes for the best science posters and the best posters for science communication.

SRI 2024 Science Poster Prize

The first prize went to Renan Ramalho Geraldes from Sirius at the Brazilian Synchrotron Light Laboratory (LNLS) for the poster “The Loading Chamber of the SAPOTI Cryogenic Nanoprobe at the CARNAUBA Beamline at Sirius/LNLS”. The second prize was given to Tang Li from DESY for the poster “Real-life challenges of single-beam ptychography vs. multi-beam ptychography”. And the third prize went to Jan Lukas Dresselhaus from the Hamburg Centre for Ultrafast Imaging for the poster with the title “Aberration corrected multilayer Laue lenses enable focusing to below 3 nanometres”.

SRI 2024 Science Communication Poster Prize (in memoriam Till Mundzeck)

Jan Lukas Dresselhaus is also the winner of the Science Communication Poster Prize. The second prize was given to Amna Majid from European XFEL for the poster with the title “Fault detection in Ion Pumps at the European XFEL”. And the third prize went to David Meier from Helmholtz-Zentrum Berlin for his poster with the title “Offset finding of beamline parameters on the METRIXS beamline at BESSY II”. The SRI 2024 Science Communication Poster Prize (Public voting) was awarded to Emmanuel Aneke (APS) for the poster “Simulation and Measurement of Horizontal Emittance via Undulator High Harmonics at the APS-U”.

The Science Communication Poster Prize donated by Lightsources.org honours Till Mundzeck, who was an inspiring science communicator and author of books, who worked within DESY’s public relations team in Hamburg. He was a highly valued member of the Lightsources.org collaboration until he died recently. Till’s enthusiasm for good science and communication was infectious. Lightsources.org is a collaboration of communicators from light source facilities around the world.

The SRI2024 conference closed today, and was attended by more than 1000 experts from around the world. The next SRI conference will be held in 2027 in Brazil.