Professor Tilo Sohnel gave his inaugural lecture, “Using neutrons and photons to study matter(s) of the world” in October. There was a full house, including several of his former research group. He recounted the interesting start to his University career, beginning under the strict regime of East Germany, then experiencing the changes that occurred with the fall of the Berlin wall and reunification.
He showed us excerpts from some of his early practical classes, making and igniting thermite and analysing the “new” YBCO superconducting materials (they had been discovered in 1986). He showed how some structural features have been a recurring theme through his inorganic materials research. The key roles of the Australian synchrotron and neutron source in Tilo’s recent research were evident, as was his continued fascination with structure-property relationships.
