Dr. Kathrin Lange, Max Born Institute for Nonlinear Optics and Short Pulse Spectroscopy, Berlin, Germany, has received the Wilhelm-Ostwald Newcomer Award from the Wilhelm-Ostwald-Gesellschaft zu Großbothen (WOG, Wilhelm Ostwald Society), the Deutsche Bunsen-Gesellschaft für Physikalische Chemie (DBG, German Bunsen Society for Physical Chemistry) and the Gesellschaft Deutscher Chemiker (GDCh, Germany Chemical Society).
The prize is awarded for the best Ph.D. thesis in the domain of Physical Chemistry in Germany. It was presented during a meeting of the WOG in Leipzig, Germany, on March 9, 2013.
Lange receives the awarded for her thesis Structure and Dynamics of Water and Ions in Solution – Soft X-Ray Adsorption and Emission Studies in which she describes the study of the hydrogen bond network of water with the LiXEdrom spectrometer that she helped develop. Most X-ray emission spectrometers have a membrane window to separate the evacuated and non-evacuated sides, but the membrane can distort measurements. The LiXEdrom spectrometer uses a micro-nozzle to shoot a thin stream of liquid through the X-ray beam at around 80 m/s. The thin and fast jet allows the vacuum to be maintained without the need of a membrane. This allows solutions and biological samples, such as proteins, to be studied without removing the associated water and destroying their natural configuration.
Kathrin Lange did her Ph.D. at the Helmholtz-Zentrum Berlin for Materials and Energy, Berlin, Germany, under the supervision of Professor Emad Aziz. She is currently a staff scientist at the Max Born Institute for Nonlinear Optics and Short Pulse Spectroscopy, Berlin, Germany.
- The Hydrogen Bond of Water from the Perspective of Soft X-Ray Spectroscopy,
Kathrin M. Lange, Emad F. Aziz,
Chem. Asian J. 2013, 8(2), 318–327.
DOI: 10.1002/asia.201200533 - On the Origin of the Hydrogen Bond Network Nature of Water: X-Ray Absorption and Emission Spectra of Water-Acetonitrile Mixtures,
Kathrin M. Lange, René Könnecke, Mikhail Soldatov, Ronny Golnak, Jan-Erik Rubensson, Alexander Soldatov, Emad F. Aziz,
Angew. Chem. Int. Ed. 2011, 50(45), 10621–10625.
DOI: 10.1002/anie.201104161 - High resolution X-ray emission spectroscopy of water and aqueous ions using the micro-jet technique,
Kathrin M. Lange, René Könnecke , Samira Ghadimi, Ronny Golnak, Mikhail A. Soldatov, Kai F. Hodeck, Alexander Soldatov, Emad F. Aziz,
Chem. Phys. 2010, 377, 1–5.
DOI: 10.1016/j.chemphys.2010.08.023
