Interview with BTU Alumna Katharina Noatschk (Physics)

Katharina Noatschk studied physics at BTU and received an award for the best master's thesis in 2019. She is now working on her doctorate at BTU in the Computational Physics department of Prof. Götz Seibold on the theory of Cooper pairs in high-temperature superconductors. Her research could help find materials that have properties of superconductors at room temperature, meaning they have virtually zero electrical resistance and generate very strong magnetic fields. This is in contrast to current superconductors, which have to be cooled down to -140 degrees Celsius. Her work could contribute to the famous flying skateboard from the movie "Back to the Future II," as she explained recently at a Science Slam. She is also a MINT (Math, Informatics, Natural Sciences, Technology) ambassador for the BTU and gets prospective students excited about our BTU programs from Faculty 1.

Hello Katharina, where does your interest in physics come from and how did you come to study at the BTU?
My old physics teacher, Mr. Wanizek, awakened my interest in physics and encouraged it. At home, however, I already soldered small circuits as a child and had fun with scientific topics. I moved to Görlitz especially for my Abitur (high school diploma), because it was possible to take special advanced courses in aerospace engineering at the school. After graduating from high school, I couldn't decide whether I wanted to study law or a natural science. That's why I first completed a political year in the Bautzen city administration, where I also got an insight into the legal department. However, I really missed the natural sciences, so I often bought the magazine Spektrum der Wissenschaften (Spectrum of Science), in which research topics from physics, technology or mathematics are presented in a popular scientific way. There were so many interesting topics in physics and also many unsolved problems, so I wanted to know more, wanted to understand more and for this reason I decided to study physics. I went to the BTU for the open day and heard a lecture by my current doctoral advisor, which appealed to me so much that I thought I wanted to study here.

You are a MINT ambassador at the BTU. What is your message to prospective students?
If you enjoy and are interested in MINT subjects, that will carry over into your studies. Of course, there are subjects that you don't really like and that can sometimes frustrate you. Only later do you realize the connections, but above all it's fun. So don't be afraid of it, your fellow students face the same challenges and you support each other. In addition, our professors' doors are open to students, so you can address problems and questions directly. The student councils also serve as contact persons and can help you with many things concerning your studies.

You are doing your doctorate at the BTU. What are your tasks at the chair in addition to your doctorate and how can one imagine your daily work?
At the beginning of my doctorate, I was supported by the German National Academic Foundation for 3 years. In addition, I taught the physics seminar for the biotechnology and materials chemistry course in Senftenberg for 3 years. Since I have been a MINT ambassador for Faculty 1, I no longer have any courses to supervise, which I would not be able to do in terms of time with my doctorate. The day-to-day work always looks a bit different. You prepare the lectures, i.e. you look at what the students have heard in the lecture and prepare exercises for them or go into certain topics in more detail. The exercises are then calculated together in the seminar.

Now, as a STEM ambassador, I organize events for schoolchildren, students and doctoral candidates. This includes visiting study and career orientation days, where I spoke, for example, about "Why studying STEM" is becoming increasingly important for the future and its challenges. We STEM ambassadors have also awarded the STEM Women's Scholarship, which is aimed at young women and is intended to make it easier for them to start studying STEM subjects, whereby not only financial support but also non-material support is included. Here we organize a scholarship holders' meeting at regular intervals. There are also many other events, such as our MINT-AGs. Of course, all of this has to be organized, and I am (fortunately) not alone in this, as there are also MINT ambassadors for Faculties 2 and 3.

An important part of my daily work is research. Whenever I'm not at or preparing for a STEM Ambassador event, I read current publications in my research area, which helps to frame my research. I evaluate my data sets that come from my computer simulation or work directly on the computer program to make adjustments for a particular problem. I then discuss the results with my PhD supervisor and my colleague Christian, where they discuss them and the way forward.

How did you come to your PhD topic and research on Cooper pairs, and what in particular fascinates you about it?
I already wrote my master's thesis with my doctoral supervisor, which was about germanium tin. The work was done in collaboration with the Leibniz Institute for High Performance Microelectronics in Frankfurt Oder. I realized that I enjoy theoretical solid-state physics and would like to continue my research in this field. The topic was suggested to me by my PhD supervisor, since high temperature superconductivity is his field of research. In my studies, we also covered superconductivity as a topic and I knew that since the discovery of high temperature superconductivity in 1986, there is no unified theory on how Cooper pairs are formed. The topic and that we can contribute a part to the solution of this problem, in which one compares our results also with experimental work and advances the research in this field, fascinated me from the beginning. If we succeed in describing a uniform theory, it will be easier to find substances or combinations of substances that become superconducting at room temperature and could, for example, revolutionize the entire transport system.

Lastly, perhaps the most important question: when is the Hoover board coming or will it be a Hoover train after all?
That is still in the future J, but when it comes, a train is much more likely. You need magnetic orbits for the superconducting Hoover board or train to float, and it would also only move within the magnetic orbit. Therefore, it is more purposeful for trains. There is already a test track for a high-temperature superconducting train between Tokyo and Osaka, which is cooled with nitrogen at the moment. In the future, such trains will be able to reach high speeds, making domestic flights unnecessary. They are also much more environmentally friendly, as they do not require fossil fuels.