PSI Summer School

Scope of school, instrumentation and methods touched upon

The ‘PSI Summer School on Condensed Matter Research’ first took place in 2002, as a continuation to our traditional summer schools on neutron scattering, which first took place in 1993 in Zuoz/Switzerland. The scope of the annual school is the training of Ph.D. and postdoctoral students in the experimental methods and probing tools provided by PSI to the scientific community: that is neutrons, muons and synchrotron light. Every year the school focuses on a specific topic, such as ‘Functional Materials’ (2009), ‘Magnetic Phenomena’ (2010), ‘Phase Transitions’ (2011), 'Imaging Life and Matter' (2012), or 'Materials – structure and magnetism' (2013).

Programme

The programme of the schools alternates between lectures introducing basic theories and experimental techniques, the latter mainly given by PSI staff, and comprehensive overviews of particular research fields mainly presented by international expert speakers. The lecturers are recruited internationally and are prominent researchers in their field in Europe and worldwide. A poster session gives the participants the opportunity to present their scientific work.

In between lectures, participants have the chance to deepen their understanding of the methods and topics addressed, through discussions with lecturers and PSI staff scientists.

Since 2009, the school is complemented by hands-on practical sessions at the instruments provided by SLS, SINQ and SmuS. Twenty to thirty students are selected, divided in small groups, and introduced to the experimental techniques with photons, neutrons and muons.

The PSI summer school is open to the Swiss and international scientific community and the language of the school is English.

The dates for the 2014 school are August 9 to 15, followed by a practical training on August 16 to 18 at PSI. It is dedicated to the topic 'Exploring time, energy and length scales in condensed matter'.

Website: http://www.psi.ch/summerschool

Report on the 2013 school

The school’s participants and organisers told us about their experience. You can get to know all about it by watching the video below and reading the article available here .