News
November 14, 2025
Group Dinner at Victoria Sushi
Once again, our group came together for an all-you-can-eat dinner at Victoria Sushi Bar & Restaurant. We enjoyed a relaxed evening with delicious food and plenty of conversation including many topics far beyond physics - Thank you for the nice evening to all of you!
October 27, 2025
Bachelor prize for Tobias Waldhütter
We are happy to announce that Tobias Waldhütter has received one of the five Bachelor Prizes of the Innsbruck University Physics Department for his Bachelor's thesis about "Storage of doped helium nanodroplets in a MR-setup". Very well deserved — congratulations again, Tobias!!!
October 01, 2025
Upcoming conferences
We are happy to announce that in 2026, we will organize both the SASP (Symposium on Atomic, Cluster and Surface Physics) and the QFC (Conference on Quantum Fluid Clusters) in Obergurgl. For more information, please refer to the homepages SASP 2026 and QFC 2026, which will be regularly updated.
August 01, 2025
Annual Suckling Pig Gathering
Last Friday, our group held its annual suckling pig get-together at the university. Current and former members came together to enjoy a relaxed evening with good food, drinks, and conversation. Alongside the traditional suckling pig, vegetarian guests were treated to delicious Kasspatzln. And of course, no gathering would be complete without our signature nitrogen ice cream for dessert. The weather may not have been perfect, but the great atmosphere more than made up for it.
July 29, 2025
Interview with Elisabeth in the AstroPAH newsletter
In the July issue of the AstroPAH newsletter, Elisabeth provides exciting insights into her research. In the interview, she talks about her current projects in astrochemistry and shares personal experiences from her scientific career. The full interview can be found at the following link: AstroPAH Newsletter
July 24, 2025
Farewell to Colombe
Since April, we’ve had the pleasure of welcoming Colombe, an intern from ENS Paris-Saclay, to our group. Over the past four months, she has worked with us at TOFFY2, studying different polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons spectroscopically. She impressed us with her hands-on mentality, her quick grasp of complex topics and her consistent professionalism. To mark the end of her internship, we held a farewell barbecue last week - a great opportunity to thank her and enjoy some good food. We wish Colombe all the best for her future, and we hope our paths will cross again. Thank you and à bientôt, Colombe!
July 18, 2025
Rigorosum of Anna Maria
Last Friday, Anna Maria succesfully defended her PhD thesis on "Helium-Nano-Droplets as Model-Reactors for New Energy Production and Storage Materials". Anna Maria achieved outstanding results during her PhD, and it was always a pleasure to work with her. We wish her all the best for the future!
July 14, 2025
Another award for Elisabeth!
After recently receiving Austria’s top early-career award, the Astra Prize, Elisabeth has now again been honored for her outstanding work: She was awarded the Young Scientist Prize from the Atomic, Molecular, and Optical Physics Division (AMOPD) of the European Physical Society! The prize is awarded only once every three years and comes with €1,500. Congratulations, Elisabeth!
July 13, 2025
New Paper Published!
We are excited to announce the publication of our latest paper 'Formation of Large Ordered Helium Solvation Shells Around Multiply Charged Species: HeNHo2+ and HeNBi2+' in the journal Small Structures. In this study, we find that cold helium organizes into distinct shells around the doubly charged metal core, comparable to the layers in a 'Mozartkugel'. We are also proud that the news page of the University of Innsbruck features an article on our paper, which can be read here.
Publication:
Formation of Large Ordered Helium Solvation Shells Around Multiply Charged Species: HeNHo2+ and HeNBi2+. Florian Foitzik, Massimiliano Bartolomei, José Campos-Martínez, Fernando Pirani, Stefan Bergmeister, Lisa Ganner, Ianessa Stromberg, Fabio Zappa, Masoomeh Mahmoodi-Darian, Tomás González-Lezana, Elisabeth Gruber. Small Structures 2025 DOI: 10.1002/sstr.202500094
June 26, 2025
!!! Elisabeth received the ASTRA prize !!!
Elisabeth received one of 18
, the highest award for early-career researchers in Austria, which includes funding of about 1 million euros. With the funding, she will investigate the interstellar chemistry by embedding astrochemically relevant species in helium nanodroplets and trapping them in a multi-reflection time-of-flight mass spectrometer, thus, "bringing the universe into the laboratory". We are very proud of her! Everyone who has worked with her knows that this is so well deserved. Congratulations again, Elisabeth!
May 13-16, 2025
3rd COST NanoSpace Joint Scientific Meeting
From 13-16. of May, Lisa and Elisabeth presented their recent research results about fullerenes at the
3rd COST NanoSpace Joint Scientific Meeting
in Kaunas, Lithuania. As with previous COST NanoSpace meetings, this event once again offered surprising and valuable insights into the latest research on the astrophysics of large carbonaceous compounds.
May 08, 2025
All-you-can-eat Sushi get-together
...mnom mnom...
April 06-16, 2025
KIRSCH Workshop in Orsay, France
From 6-16. of April, Lisa, Elisabeth and Florian participated in the
KIRSCH Workshop (Knowledge in Ion Reactions by Synchrotron for astroCHemistry)
in Orsay, France. Alongside all the interesting talks and discussions, one of the highlights was our visit to the SOLEIL synchrotron (see picture). And of course, we couldn’t miss the chance to explore Paris a bit over the weekend!
February 19, 2025
Day of Mathematics, Computer Science and Physics (MIP Tag)
On February 19th, we participated in the Day of Mathematics, Computer Science, and Physics (
), where we welcomed schoolchildren to visit our labs. In addition to showcasing our work in the lab, we demonstrated small experiments, including a Tesla coil and a plasma tube, and showed the effects of a vacuum by inflating Schokoküsse and balloons. It was a pleasure to host the students, and we sincerely thank everyone who contributed to making the event a success.
February 06, 2025
Tobogganing at Maria Waldrast
January 21, 2025
Defensio of Jan's Master thesis
We congratulate Jan on the successful defense of his Master’s thesis titled 'Secondary electron emission statistics upon highly charged helium nanodroplets colliding with metal surfaces'. Even though he faced several challenges during his Master thesis project, he managed to obtain very interesting results. Even more, we are very happy that Jan will be continuing with his PhD in our group.
January 09, 2025
Paul's Birthday
Happy Birthday, Paul! Thank you for being such a great group leader and supplying us with delicious cakes!
December 17, 2024
Stefan's Goodbye Party
At the end of the year, Stefan is leaving the group and to say goodbye, we had pizza, beer and cake together. Stefan, we will miss your incredible technical skills, your good mood and your delicious cakes! We wish you all the best for your future and we hope that this won't be the last time we come together to enjoy great food, drinks, and conversations.
November 26, 2024
Milestone Birthday of Masoomeh!
Celebrating Masoomeh's milestone birthday together: We hope you had a wonderful day and thank you for the delicious cakes!
October 25, 2024
Törggelen 2024
As every year, the current and past members of the Scheier group got together at Müssigang's farm in Mühlau for Törggelen. As always, it was a pleasure to eat, drink and chat together!
September 25-28, 2024
Labastro Meeting
Lisa and Elisabeth joined the Labastro Meeting which took place in the gorgeous 'Ringberg castle', a castle with an amazing view over lake Tegernsee. As the name indicates, the Labastro Meeting addresses challenges in laboratory astrophysics. In her invited talk, Elisabeth showed the new results on the spectroscopy of C60+ analogues with our helium-tagging messenger spectroscopy setups TOFFY2 and CLUSTOF. Lisa presented a poster about our recent discovery that we could form doubly and triply charged C60 dimers in TOFFY2 (see publication), for which she even received the best poster award!
September 26-27, 2024
CATCOSY
Last week, Johannes and Paul participated in the CATCOSY Meeting in Madrid, which focused on metal clusters and their role in catalysis. Paul gave a presentation on the properties and applications of charged HNDs, while Johannes showed his findings from the spectroscopic investigation of gold clusters. The event sparked many new ideas, thanks to the insightful talks and engaging discussions with other participants.
Paul (in the middle) and Johannes (right) with colleagues from Madrid
August 30, 2024
FFG internships
During the summer school break, two high school students, Lilli and Florian, participated for four weeks in an FFG internship funded by the ‘Österreichische Forschungsförderungsgesellschaft’. The goal of the internship was to provide students interested in research with the opportunity to gain insight and hands-on experience in the field. During their time with us, Lilli and Florian worked with us at various lab experiments, designed components using SolidWorks, ran simulations with Simion, and much more. We hope they gained valuable knowledge and that this experience will help guide their future career choices. Thank you, Lilli and Florian, for joining us!
August 29, 2024
Publication: The role of Na decoration on the hydrogen adsorption on coronene
Recently, a paper from our group about the role of Na decoration on the hydrogen adsorption on coronene was published in the prestigious journal International Journal of Hydrogen Energy (Impact factor 8.1). Congratulations to everyone who contributed!
Publication:
The role of Na decoration on the hydrogen adsorption on coronene: a combined experimental and computational study by E. García-Arroyo, A.M. Reider, S. Kollotzek, F. Foitzik, J. Campos-Martínez, M. Bartolomei, F. Piranic, M.I. Hernández, M. Mella, and P. Scheier
Int. J. Hydrog. Energy 83, 387-395 (2024)
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijhydene.2024.07.425
August 23, 2024
Group hike to Nockspitze
...rewarding us with amazing views of Innsbruck and the surrounding landscape.
August 20 and 21, 2024
Master's thesis defense of Johannes Reichegger and Thomas Pohl
Recently, two Master students in our group defended their thesis, Johannes and Thomas! You did an amazing job on your Master theses: Johannes spectroscopically studied the reactivitiy of small gold clusters and Thomas built up a setup for the deposition of nanoparticles. We are very happy that both are staying in the group to do their PhD!
August 08, 2024
Publication: Formation of Doubly and Triply Charged Fullerene Dimers in Superfluid Helium Nanodroplets
Recently, the paper ‘Formation of Doubly and Triply Charged Fullerene Dimers in Superfluid Helium Nanodroplets’ from TOFFY2 was published in the prestigious journal Physical Review Letters (Impact factor 8.1). The publication was also highlighted in the Newsroom of the University!
Publication:
Formation of Doubly and Triply Charged Fullerene Dimers in Superfluid Helium Nanodroplets by Lisa Ganner, Stefan Bergmeister, Lucas Lorenz, Milan Ončák, Paul Scheier, and Elisabeth Gruber
Phys. Rev. Lett. 133, 023001 (2024)
https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevLett.133.023001
July 22, 2024
Master's thesis defense of Florian Foitzik
Florian defended his Master's thesis about 'helium solvation of multiply charged monoatomic ions' with a great talk and a flawless examination. During his Master's research, Florian also managed to design a new high-temperature oven, which even enabled to evaporate lanthanum. Many attempts to evaporate lanthanum have been made in the past, but Florian was the first one in the group who succeded, of which he can be very proud. We are very happy that he is staying in the group as a PhD student!
July 19, 2024
Saying Goodbye to Olga
Yesterday, we had to say goodbye to Olga, who is going to Japan (Fukuoka) for a PostDoc position. During her time in the group, Olga was hard-working and managed to publish numerous papers. Besides, she was always spreading her inspirational motivation to the other group members and her infectious good mood lit up the whole team, creating a joyful atmosphere. Olga was also the one who initiated this news section and took great care of the whole homepage. It was a pleasure to work with you, Olga! We wish you all the best and hope to see you again soon!
