In the last two years, we were lacking a substantial number of operation days of our neutron source FRM II. Caused by legal issues on the transport of fuel elements from our supplier in France and the still ongoing Covid pandemic, we only could offer very limited access in the years 2019 and 2020. Especially the impact of the Covid pandemic and the related access restrictions pushed us to implement additional sophisticated online tools to enable remote access, in case users will not be able to come on-site to Garching. These online tools not only implement a remote control of the measurements in close collaboration with the local contact and the entire instrument team. It includes the full suite of software to evaluate the collected data and enables an optimised measurement strategy during the available beam time.

Being well prepared to restart our user programme in spring this year, however, we discovered technical problems with our cold source. These difficulties hit us unanticipated, as all cryogenic systems did not show any unusual behaviour and the operation of the cold source turned out to be very reliable over the last 15 years. All our effort is concentrated now to overcome this problem in order to restart our user operation in the second half of 2021. We will keep you informed as soon as we can decide on a restart and conditions for the user service in the upcoming months.

All our staff is very eager to get back our beloved neutrons, but in the same way, we are missing the pleasing collaboration with our users, performing fascinating experiments and fruitful collaborations. Hope to see you all back at the MLZ in the near future!

Prof. Dr. Peter Müller-Buschbaum
(Scientific Director FRM II/ Scientific Director MLZ)

Don’t worry: You don’t have to dance! Our time lapse movie shows you how time flies in the Neutron Guide Hall East between 2012 and 2021.

Mysterious red and green lights in the Neutron Guide Hall West? Read what is happening at the spin echo spectrometer J-NSE “PHOENIX”!

Changing samples without losing any time: Learn about an idea of our Groups Sample Environment and Instrument Control in a short video!

After skipping it last year, the MLZ Conference took place in a digital format this time. The topic: Neutrons for Life Sciences. We also accompanied it again with a lot of tweets and it attracted many, many participants!

After the new buildings had been inaugurated in 2020, there is now a hustling and bustling all around the site: Nearly everybody seems to move!

Meet some new colleagues at the instruments! This time: at TOFTOF, SPODI, FIREPOD, PUMA, the dilatometer, and in the Battery Research Group!

The II. MLZ User Committee, in charge since January 01^st, 2021, looks forward to help you during this challenging times and asks you to get in touch.

Collecting huge masses of data and organizing them FAIR – DAPHNE4NFDI received funding for this task. What does this mean for you as a user?

Pandemic times and scientific experiments – not quite a good combination! But viewed from another angle, it is a big chance to develop workflows for remote access to the MLZ and its instruments!

On March 28^th, the namesake of the research neutron source Heinz Maier-Leibnitz (FRM II) and the Heinz Maier-Leibnitz Zentrum (MLZ) would have turned 110 years old. As the “father of the atomic egg” in Garching and founder of the ILL in Grenoble, he shaped modern neutron research like no one else.

Johanna Jochum, instrument scientist at RESEDA, gave a really cool talk about superconductors at the famous Deutsches Museum at Munich. Grab a glass of Bavarian beer and watch the You Tube video – her sketchnote-style slides are adorable!

The Heinz Maier-Leibnitz Zentrum has given itself a new slogan: “Neutrons for Research and Innovation” is what we offer to visiting scientists from all over the world.

The weekly joint MLZ and TUM Physics Department lecture series “Neutrons for Science and Industry” continues online since April 19^th – talks are announced in the events section of our web page.