MIN Faculty Research Center

Ultrafast processes in slow motion

How do the elementary building blocks of nature move? Is it possible to control atoms, molecules, and electrons precisely—and on all length and energy scales? These questions represent some of the biggest and most exciting challenges of modern science—and the focus at the Hamburg Centre for Ultrafast Imaging (CUI): the analysis of fundamental chemical and physical processes in photon and nanoscience.

Direct imaging of ultrafast processes using innovative X-ray and electron sources forms the core of our research. Subsequently, these highly complex processes are investigated and analyzed in detail. Combined expertise from the fields of physics, chemistry, medicine, and biology is indispensable.

Scientific teams from Universität Hamburg cooperate with teams from the Deutsches Elektronen-Synchrotron (DESY), European XFEL GmbH (XFEL), European Molecular Biology Laboratory (EMBL), and the Max Planck Institute for the Structure and Dynamics of Matter (MPSD) under the umbrella of the CUI cluster of excellence.

As a research project of Universität Hamburg within the scope of the Excellence Initiative of the German federal and state governments, the center is initially being funded with €25 million for a period of five years starting on 1 November 2012.

• Centre for Ultrafast Imaging (CUI)