At the Helmholtz-Zentrum Berlin für Materialien und Energie (HZB) we explore materials and complex material systems that help to face current and future challenges, such as the energy transition -- "Energiewende". One of the HZB's research emphases is on materials for thin-film photovoltaics and for the conversion of solar energy into chemical energy carriers (e.g. molecular hydrogen).

To be able to study material structures and processes in detail, the HZB operates two separate large-scale research facilities -- the neutron source BER II and the synchrotron radiation source BESSY II -- used by some 3,000 guest scientists from all around the World every year. At both facilities, HZB teams have developed in some cases unparalleled instruments and are continuing to work on increasing their measurement precision to allow for new insights to be gleaned.

The HZB is a member of the Helmholtz Association and co-founder of the Competence Centre for Thin-Film and Nanotechnology for Photovoltaics Berlin (PVcomB), whose mission it is to promote the technology transfer to industry.

The deployment of ICAT at HZB is at an early stage. As of 2015, we started trial operations with a few beamlines registering their data in ICAT. We plan to get fully operational, using ICAT as the catalogue to access the data produced from all instruments at BER II and BESSY II in the near future.