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From September 30 to October 6 2026, Andreas Rasp, Sabyasachi Bag and Dorothee Schaffner from the AK Fischer were at the VUV beamline of the Swiss Light Source (SLS) to study reactive molecules using photoelectron spectroscopy.

From September 23rd – 28th 2026, Dorothee Schaffner, Katharina Theil, Sabyasachi Bag, and Prof. Dr. Ingo Fischer were at the DESIRS beamline at the Synchrotron SOLEIL in France to study reactive molecules using soft synchrotron radiation.

On July 17, "Fischerman, Family and Friends" once again took part in the Schwanberglauf in Iphofen. After a strenuous uphill run, the impressive times were celebrated at the wine festival in Castell.

Prof. Dr. Animesh Ojha and Ashwani Maurya from MNNIT Allahabad in India are visiting the AK Fischer during June and July.
A social evening was held to mark the visit of Tao Wu from IOCB Prague, who came to exchange ideas on Raman Optical Activity.

The "Fischerman & Friends" team successfully participated in this year's ChemCup. Together with the AK Horstmann, we had a strong squad and achieved a respectable 6th-place finish. We were initially unaware that this ranking would qualify us to host the ChemCup next year...however, we are naturally happy to accept this challenge.

From 9th to 15th of February 2026 Jannik Markert, Katharina Theil, Dorothee Schaffner and Ingo Fischer were at the Beamline Maloja at SwissFEL in Switzerland. Together with the team from Maloja they investigated pyrolytically generated radicals by time-resolved X-ray spectroscopy.

From 15th to 23rd of December Katharina Theil, David Friedrich, Dorothee Schaffner and Ingo Fischer visited DESY in Hamburg for a beamtime. Together with the group of Markus Gühr they investigated B,N-containing molecules by time-resolved X-ray spectroscopy at FLASH II.

The Fischer research group participated in the faculty’s own ChemSyStM 2025 symposium with numerous contributions. Klaus Hofmann had the opportunity to present the poster designed by him and Pragya Agrahari in form of a 5-minute poster appetizer talk. Competing against ten other speakers, he managed to come out on top and win the prize for best short presentation. Congratulations, Klaus!

A warm welcome to Preetika Verma, guest researcher from IISER Thiruvananthapuram, India.

From 03.-08.08.2025 Lilith Wohlfart and Dorothee Schaffner attended The 37th International Symposium on Free Radicals in Snowbird, Utah (USA). Both presented their research on posters and Dorothee Schaffner received the poster prize. Their attendance was funded by scholarships from the GDCh and the Universitätsbund Würzburg.

For this year's institutional excursion, some members of the institute went on a short Weinwanderung through the wine hills near the university together. Of course AK Fischer had to join. Afterwards, everyone from the institute gathered for some pizza and soft drinks.

Like every year some members of AK Fischer participated in the Schwanberglauf. This time with a slightly smaller group, but at the Casteller Weinfest a lot of former members joined in for a fun evening of telling old stories.

Dorothee Schaffner attended the 74th Lindau Nobel Laureate Meeting (Chemistry) from 29th July - 4th July.

We are proud to announce that our former bachelor student Jannik Markert has received the faculty prize for the best bachelor's degree. His bachelor thesis focused on “One-Photon Ionisation of 4a,4b-Azaborphenanthren”. Congratulations Jannik!

Even though we had a great starting lineup this year, we didn’t make it past the group phase and only finished in 11th place. At least not a single goal was scored against us, and we had a lot of fun with the “friends” part of Fischerman&Friends.

From May 28 to June 6, 2025, Katharina Theil and Lilith Wohlfart visited the FELIX Laboratory in Nijmegen to conduct IR/UV-ion-dip spectroscopy on quinoline-halogen clusters.

From 17. – 19.03.2025 Prof. Dr. Ingo Fischer and Dorothee Schaffner attended the Bunsen-Tagung in Leipzig where they met our former colleagues Domenik Schleier and Marius Gerlach. Marius Gerlach received the Agnes-Pockels-Award for his doctoral thesis.

The DPG spring meeting of the section atoms, molecules, quantenphysic and photonic was held from the 10.03.25-14.03.25 in Bonn. Jonas Fackelmayer and Dorothee Schaffner contributed with a talk, while Katharina Theil and Lilith Wohlfart presented a poster. 

The Start-Up Meeting for the International Research Training Group 2991 took place from the 25.02. – 28.02.2025 at the campus IISER Thiruvananthapuram in India. Prof. Dr. Ingo Fischer and Lilith Wohlfart are part of the IRTG and attended the Meeting.

On 13th February 2025 Floriane Sturm successfully defended her doctoral thesis on Photoinduced Processes in Azaphenanthrenes, Aza- and Azaboranaphthalenes and Their Dimers.

Congratulations! We wish you all the best for the future!

From 08.01. - 10.01.2025 Katharina Theil und Dorothee Schaffner attended the XUVTRPES workshop in Freiburg where they presented their results by a talk and a poster.

From 04.08. - 08.08.2024 the VOA8 Conference on Vibrational Optical Activity took place in Bochum. Klaus Hofmann presented there a poster on his ROA setup and won the price for the best teaser talk.

Also this year, the AK Fischer traditionally took part in the Schwanberg run on 19^th July. Former and current employees conquered the 10.4 km long mountain run and ended the evening in a relaxed atmosphere at the Castell wine festival.

From 09.07. to 15.07.24 Dorothee Schaffner, Emil Karaev, Lilith Wohlfart, Katharina Theil and Prof. Dr. Ingo Fischer were at the PLEIADES beamline at the synchrotron Soleil in France where they investigated reactive molecules by soft X-ray radiation.

This year we celebrated the traditional IPTC summer party. In addition to the delicious barbecue, there was also a lighthearted competition between the different research groups. We won at the disciplines “laser minigolf” and “best salad” and took the trophy home. We thank the organizers for a great event.

We are pleased to announce that our former PhD student Marius Gerlach has been awarded this year's Faculty Prize for Chemistry and Pharmacy on 22 June 2024 for his dissertation on "Spectroscopy of fulminic acid HCNO with VUV- and soft X-ray radiation". Congratulations to him!

We took part in the Chemcup again this year on 18/06/2024 in perfect weather. This year we mastered the preliminary rounds brilliantly and even achieved 8th place. This allowed us to celebrate the day in style.

From 27.05 to 02.06.2024 Katharina Theil, Jonas Fackelmayer and Ingo Fischer were at the Deutsches Elektronen-Synchrotron DESY in Hamburg.  During this time they investigated the excited-state dynamics of 1,4-Azaborin and HNCS utilizing the free-electron-laser FLASH. They were supported by co-workers of the group of Markus Gühr.

From May 27th to June 6th, Dorothee Schaffner, Emil Karaev, Andreas Rasp, and Valentin von Laffert were at the Gas Phase Beamline at the Elettra Synchrotron in Basovizza, Trieste. Together with Michele Alagia and Alessio Bruno, they investigated the propargyl radical using soft X-ray radiation. Following the measurements, there was a short excursion to Trieste, where they watched the sunset at the harbor.

Regardless of rain and wind, the AK Fischer was once again at the Erlanger Bergkirchweih on 17.05.2024. Despite the bad weather, we had a great time. Prost until next year!

We give a warm welcome to Mathilde Roux from the Université Paris-Saclay in France. She will be doing a four month traineeship at AK Fischer from April to August 2024. Her research topic will be applied ROA spectroscopy of biomolecules.

From 25.03. - 27.03.24 the Bunsen Conference 2024 with the title "High-Resolution Structural Methods in Material and Life Sciences" took place in Aachen. Ingo Fischer attended the conference and met our former colleague Domenik Schleier, who is now pursuing his habilitation in physics in Berlin after his postdoc stay in Leiden and Paderborn

From 10.03.-16.03.24 Dorothee Schaffner, Emil Karaev, and Ingo Fischer from AK Fischer visited the Maloja Beamline at SwissFEL in Switzerland. There, together with a large team of diverse scientists, they carried out time-resolved experiments using X-ray radiation on phenanthridine. At the same time, the DPG spring conference of the section Atoms, Molecules, Quantum Optics and Photonics took place in Freiburg im Breisgau from 10.03.-15.03.24. Floriane Sturm presented her current work with a talk and Klaus Hofmann, Luisa Martin, Lilith Wohlfart and Jonas Fackelmayer contributed with posters.

One of our former colleagues, Marius Gerlach, is now working as a postdoc at the FELIX Laboratory in Nijmegen, Netherlands.
We wish you all the best in your new role!

From 08.01.-19.01.24 Lilith Wohlfart and Floriane Sturm from AK Fischer conducted pyrolysis experiments with DMCB, a four-ring isomer of benzene, using IR/UV Ion Dip spectroscopy at the FELIX laboratory in Nijmegen, Netherlands, in collaboration with beamline scientist Dr. Piero Ferrari Ramirez.

On 25th October 2023 Marius Gerlach successfully defended his doctoral thesis with distinction on Spectroscopy of fulminic acid HCNO with VUV- and soft X-ray radiation.

Congratulations! We wish you all the best for the future!

From 23.09-08.10.2023 Jonas Fackelmayer, Katharina Theil and Ingo Fischer visited the Institute of Molecular Sciences of Orsay (ISMO) in France to perform femtosecond time-resolved experiments. They investigated fulvenallene, 1,4-azaborine and phenanthridine. They were supported by Lionel Poisson and Lou Barreau.

Lilith Wohlfart participated at the 755. WE-Heraeus-Seminar on Solvation Chemistry and Reactive Molecules at the physics center Bad Honnef. There she presented a poster about the photodissociation of the CH2Br-radical.

From 05.09. to 10.09.23 Dorothee Schaffner and Marius Gerlach from AK Fischer were at the Paul-Scherrer-Institut in Switzerland to do pyrolysis measurements of reactive molecules. As the upgrade of the Swiss Light Source (SLS) will start at the end of this month, this was the last beamtime at the VUV beamline for now.

Former and current members of the AK Fischer took part at the Schwanberglauf 2023. After the 10.4 km run uphill they ended the evening at the wine festival in Castell. With a time of 47:09 min Jonas Fackelmayer was the fastest runner of the "Fischerman & Friends" and even finished as 37^th runner in the overall statistics.

From 08.07. to 12.07.23 Marius Gerlach, Dorothee Schaffner and Emil Karaev from AK Fischer were at the Swiss Light Source (SLS) to carry out pyrolysis measurements.

On 08.07.23 the graduation ceremony took place and three PhD students of the AK Fischer recieved their master diploma. Jonas Fackelmayer gave the speech for the academic course of chemistry and Dorothee Schaffner received the faculty award for the master's course in chemistry.

From 25.06. - 30.06.23 the International Symposium on Molecular Beams 2023  took place in Rethymno/Crete. Floriane Sturm participated at the conference with a talk and a poster on the spectroscopic results of BN-9,10-naphthalene.

From 14.06-24.06.23 Dorothee Schaffner, Emil Karaev and Ingo Fischer worked at the Synchrotron Elettra in Trieste to investigate the tert-butyl radical with soft X-ray radiation at the GasPhase Beamline. They were supported by Robert Richter, Michele Alagia (both from the GasPhase Beamline) and Stefano Stranges.

Finally ChemCup again! Although we were already eliminated in the preliminary round, we really had a good time celebrating after such a long time without ChemCup.

From 05.06. - 07.06.23 the Bunsen Conference 2023 took place in Berlin. AK Fischer took part with 6 posters. In addition, Floriane Sturm was awarded a poster prize for her poster. Floriane presented the spectroscopic results of BN-9,10-naphthalene - a BN substituted naphthalene.

Also this year, the AK Fischer visited the Bergkirchweih in Erlangen on May 26, 2023 together with the AKs from theoretical chemistry. As always, it was a successful day this time in Erich Keller. We look forward to next year. Cheers!

We warmly welcome Priyanka A Paunikar from the IISER Thiruvananthapuram University India here at AK Fischer. Through the DAAD WISE program, she will be conducting a 3 month internship with us from May to July 2023. Her research topic is on photodissociation dynamics of CH2Cl2.

From 07.09. - 09.09.22 the Bunsen Conference 2022 took place in Gießen. The AK Fischer took part with 3 lectures and a poster. In addition, Klaus Hofmann received a poster prize for his poster. Klaus presented the Raman Optical Activity spectrometer he built himself, upcoming challenges and shows the first recorded spectra.

On August 14th, 2022, AK Fischer went on a fun excursion to the family owned farm of former PhD student Engelbert Reusch.
After an adventurous canoe tour along the Saale, we had a barbecue and apple cider in the evening.

From 07.08. - 12.08.22 the Gordon Research Conference on Frontiers in Size-Selected Cluster Research: Structure, Reactivity and Dynamics took place near Lucca/Italy. Floriane Sturm participated with a poster at the conference as well as at the previous Gordon Research Seminar on Probing the Microscopic Structures and Dynamics of Molecular and Ionic Clusters from 06.08-07-08.22.

Also this year, the AK Fischer traditionally took part on 07/15/2022 in the Schwanberg run after a 2-year corona break. Former and current employees conquered the 10.4 km long mountain run, then ended the evening in a relaxed atmosphere at the Castell wine festival.