Annual Report 2023

We hope that you will enjoy browsing through this report and maybe get inspired by one or the other exciting research project. The report nicely demonstrates the interdisciplinarity and breadth of research carried out at LIP. This year, our collaborative research projects range from instrumental developments that require fundamental knowledge of underlying physics, such as developing a setup for 32Simeasurements, to detecting minute amounts of radionuclides in sea water to trace ocean currents or in rocks to determine their cosmogenic exposure age. Our main nuclide, radiocarbon, opens up its own cosmos of research and applications. In this report, we revisit the Ötzi, have several very interesting archeological applications, trace slave trade in Medieval times, apply the dating technique to ancient artistic objects, use it to determine sources of carbon in sediments, water, air, and even amino acids, and study radiocarbon in labelled nanoplastics. Highlights from our Materials Sciences group involve the investigation of new materials for Li-batteries, semiconductors, and for solar hydrogen production and a substantial improvement of our ion microprobe system.