Thomas Brückel

Thomas Brückel is Director of the Jülich Centre for Neutron Science (JCNS-2), of the Peter Grünberg Institute (PGI-4) and full Professor at RWTH Aachen University.

Thomas studied Physics at the University of Tübingen and did his PhD in neutron scattering at the Hahn Meitner Institute (HMI) in Berlin (now Helmholtz Zentrum Berlin (HZB)) and the Institute Laue-Langevin (ILL) in Grenoble. His career revolves around neutrons and synchrotron radiation. He worked as instrument scientist at the ILL and at the synchrotron radiation center of DESY, Hamburg, where he focused on magnetic and high energy x-ray scattering. He built a beamline at the Advanced Photon Source (APS) of Argonne National Laboratory (ANL) and was visiting scientist at the Spallation Neutron Source (SNS) of Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL). Since 1997 he works at Forschungszentrum Jülich GmbH (FZJ).

Thomas’ research interest is on quantum materials and nano-magnetism. He played a key role in the development of instrumentation for the Heinz Maier-Leibnitz Zentrum (MLZ), which he headed as Scientific Director between 2015 and 2018, and for the JCNS contribution to the European Spallation Source (ESS). His focus is on polarised neutrons. Given the ongoing shut-down of older research reactors in Europe, he has initiated and is pursuing a project for a next generation neutron facility based on low energy accelerator technology, the High Brilliance neutron Source project (HBS).

1. Photo:  Ralf-Uwe Limbach, Forschungszentrum Jülich GmbH