The certificate awarded ceremony of CAS Visiting Professorships to Senior International Scientists was held at the Institute of Modern Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences (IMP) on August 22, 2011.

Prof. ZHAO Hongwei, the vice director of IMP, on behalf of CAS, presented the certificate of CAS Visiting Professorship to Prof. Heinz Walter Gaeggeler, who comes from Paul Scherrer Institute and Bern University in Switzerland. Prof. ZHAO gave a brief introduction of Prof. Gaeggeler’s academic background, the cooperation between Prof. Gaeggeler and IMP, as well as the Visiting Professorships Program of CAS. Prof. Gaeggeler expressed his expectation for a fruitful cooperation in mutual research in the future.

Then, Prof. Gaeggeler gave a talk titled “Synthesis of Heaviest Elements in Heavy Ion Reactions and Recent Achievements in Their Chemical Studies”, followed by a lively discussion on superheavy elements.

Prof. Gaeggeler is the former Deputy Director of the Paul Scherrer Institute and Director of the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry at Bern University in Switzerland. He is a well-known expert in the synthesis and chemical behavior of superheavy elements, such as Bh (Z=107), Hs (Z=108), Cn (Z=112) and Z=114.

During his visit at IMP, Prof. Gaeggeler will mainly focus on the scientific cooperation in the chemical properties of volatile compounds of superheavy element. He will also give a lecture course about radiochemistry for graduate students.