Dr. Peter Spiller awarded the Horst Klein Research Prize
07.05.2025 |
Dr. Peter Spiller, sub-project leader of SIS100/SIS18 at the GSI Helmholtzzentrum für Schwerionenforschung, has been awarded the prestigious Horst Klein Research Prize 2024. The award ceremony recently took place as part of a festive colloquium at the spring conference of the German Physical Society (DPG) in Göttingen.
The prize is awarded by the Goethe University Frankfurt and the Physikalischer Verein Frankfurt in cooperation with the DPG for outstanding scientific achievements in the field of accelerator physics and technology. Dr. Spiller receives the award for his decades of work on the optimization of ring accelerators for high-intensity heavy ion beams. The prize was awarded to Dr. Peter Spiller by Professor Roger Erb on behalf of the University of Frankfurt and the Horst Klein Foundation of the Physikalischer Verein and by Professor Kurt Aulenbacher on behalf of the DPG's Accelerator Physics Working Group.
Dr. Spiller's research has contributed significantly to the development of innovative concepts for the particular demanding operation with intense heavy ion beams of low charge – which are the central challenges in achieving the FAIR goals. The new concepts developed at GSI are trend-setting for many new heavy ion accelerator facilities worldwide. Some of the concepts are already being used successfully at the GSI synchrotron SIS18 and will make a decisive contribution to achieving the performance in subsequent SIS100 booster operation.
Dr. Spiller thus laid the foundations at an early stage on a comprehensive concept to increase the performance of the SIS18, which will serve as an injector for the FAIR accelerator facility in the future. The knowledge gained from this was directly incorporated into the development of the FAIR ring accelerator SIS100, a globally unique superconducting synchrotron with a design specially optimized for intense heavy ion beams. This sets new standards with innovative technologies such as a lattice for separating charges, cryogenic ion traps, a cryogenic UHV system and a rapidly variable superconducting magnet system.
Dr. Spiller has shaped the development of these accelerators from the very beginning and played a key role in the planning of today's FAIR project back in the late 1990s. His work is exemplary for the close link between a fundamental understanding of physics and technological innovation.(JL/BP)
Horst Klein Research Prize
The research prize is named after the physicist Professor Dr. Horst Klein (1931-2012). It is awarded annually to internationally outstanding scientists in the field of accelerator physics. Further information can be found here.
