Winfried Petry
Prof. Dr.
Former professor for functional materials and scientific director of FRM II
TUM School of Natural Sciences
born 1951
Interview with TUM Emeritus of Excellence Winfried Petry
"I am now a Tue-Wed-Thu professor"
Whoever deals with neurons will come across his name: Winfried Petry. In October 2018 the alumnus and retired professor has been appointed TUM Emeritus of Excellence – a title that is honouring his lifetime achievements at TUM. [read more]
CV
Winfried Petry is a world-renowned condensed matter physicist and expert in neutron research. He has authored over 400 scientific publications. His early research focused on the pico- and nanosecond dynamics of disordered systems near the solidification point. He demonstrated universal scaling laws for the critical dynamics of a wide range of systems, including proteins as well as inorganic, organic, and metallic glass formers. Through his systematic studies of the vibrational dynamics of elemental metals, Petry showed that most of these elements condense into a body-centred cubic (bcc) structure due to their high vibrational entropy. High-resolution quasielastic neutron scattering revealed that atomic diffusion in these metals occurs via nearest-neighbour jumps. A unifying theme of his work is the explanation of functional material properties on the basis of atomic motion.
In 2002, Winfried Petry became the Scientific Director of the Neutron Source FRM II. In this capacity, he was in charge of the design and the set-up of the instrumentation of the facility. From the very beginning, he opened the facility to the international scientific competition. In a first step, he solicited numerous research groups at universities, at Max Planck institutes and at the For-schungszentrum Jülich to actively participate in the set-up and operation of the instruments at FRM II. This collaboration resulted in the foundation of the Heinz Maier-Leibnitz Zentrum (MLZ) in 2011. The MLZ is committed to exploit the scientific use of neutrons. Today, about 1000 scientists per year perform their experiments at the MLZ, with a share of about 50 % of international scientists; typically, the beam time available is overbooked by the factor of two. Today MLZ is the neutron research center with the widest applications worldwide. The German Federal Government pro-vides about 50 % of the funds of MLZ.
The FRM II is a partner in the research and development efforts made worldwide to qualify high density uranium fuels, a prerequisite for converting the neutron source to lower enriched uranium fuel. Winfried Petry headed the respective working group from 2003 and continues to advise FRM II on this matter.
Short Biography
| 1970 - 1976 | Studies in physiks at the Technical University of Munich |
| 1976 - 1982 | Doctoral studies at TUM and at the free University of Berlin |
| 1983 - 1992 | Research scientist and head of the low temperature group at the European research institute Institut Laue Langevin (ILL) |
| 1992 | Postdoctoral qualification (habilitation) Ludwig-Maximilians-University, Munich |
| 1992 - 2018 | Full Professor at the Physics Department of TUM |
| 2002 - 2018 | Scientific Director of the Neutron Source (FRM II) |
| 2011 - 2018 | Scientific Director of the Heinz Maier-Leibnitz Zentrum (MLZ) |
| 2024-2025 | Member of the Bavarian Expert Commission on Nuclear Fusion |
Memberships and honours
| 1990 - 2018 | Member of "Komitee für Forschung mit Neutronen" (Committee for research and neutrons) |
| since 1993 | Organizer of the Edgar-Lüscher training course for grammar school teachers, Gymnasium of the city of Zwiesel, Bavaria |
| since 1999 | Liaison professor of Bayerische Eliteakademie (Bavarian Elite Academy) and since May 2011 member of the board of trustees |
| 2005 - 2019 | Board member of the "Deutsches Atomforum e.V." (DAtF); Vice President of DAtF (2014 - 2019) |
| since 2007 | Member of the steering Committee of the Laue Langevin Institute Grenoble |
| since 2012 | Member of the Scientific Advisory Board of NaWi Graz |
| 2015 - 2022 | Member of the Neutron Scientific Advisory Committee of the National Resreach Center Kurchatov Institute "Petersburg Nuclear Physics Institute (PNPI, Gatchina) |
| since 2016 | Board member of the iInternational meeting centre "Internationales Begegnungszentrum (IBZ)" Munich of TUM, LMU and MPG |
| since 2019 | Member of the Project Advisory Committee of the European Spallation Source (ESS) |
Awards
2006 Honorary Professor of the Chinese Institute of Atomic Energy (CIAE)
2008 Cross of Merit of the German Federal Republic
2018 Honorary Member of the Kerntechnische Gesellschaft (KTG e.V.)
You can download "Explanations of honors and awards" here [PDF 215 KB]