Annual Report 2021

The past year was the second one the Laboratory of Ion Beam Physics had to operate under restrictionsgiven by the Covid-19 pandemic situation. Despite the difficulties to maintain routine operation and thelimited personnel interaction caused by mandatory or advised home office obligations, we had somescientific highlights in 2021.One highlight of the year was the triennial AMS conference, which was held fully online, a novelty in its43-year long history. The fact that the conference schedule was based on Australian Eastern Daylight Timewas challenging, but still many LIP scientists and PhD students presented their work online in the form ofpre-recorded video presentations and posters. With best poster and best poster plus awards theconference was particularly successful for two of our PhD students.Also, the scientific output of LIP was exceptional this year. Scientific publications in peer reviewed journalswith LIP members as first or contributing authors almost reached the number of one hundred. Amongthose, a remarkable number of publications was published in top ranked journals, underlining therelevance of research at LIP. This report is intended to briefly summarize the board research activities ofthe laboratory. We hope that reading it will stimulate your curiosity and that you might want to follow upwith the related scientific literature as given in the publication list.We are continuing our commitment of providing excellent service to external and internal users, wecontribute significantly to their scientific output and careers. In 2021, more than 18'000 individual analyseshave been made on our instruments. In addition, LIP scientists and staff are deeply engaged in the trainingof students and apprentices at all levels of their careers and in many different departments, which makesLIP an important player in fulfilling the educational mission of ETH.We are looking forward to return to normal working conditions, to reactivate in person discussions andexchange of scientific ideas. Finally, we want to thank all LIP users and collaborators for their contributionsto this volume. It is their trust and confidence that motivates us to refine and further exploit the powerfulopportunities of ion beam technology and the related applications.Hans-Arno Synal and Marcus Christl