The Winner of the 2003 ECOSS Prize

Christian Koitzsch

Christian Koitzsch, born in 1975 in Eisenhuttenstadt, Germany, started his undergraduate studies inelectrical engineering at the Technical University of Ilmenau, Germany in 1994. There he became interested

in the field of surface physics during a semester project work in the group of Prof. J. Schafer. In 1997 he

won a scholarship from the Konrad Adenauer Foundation to study one year abroad. He moved to the

United States to Raleigh, NC and pursued his studies with a focus on solid state physics at the North

Carolina State University. In parallel to his studies he worked as research assistant in the group of Prof.

Robert Nemanich, where he started to employ angle-resolved photoemission to study wide-bandgap ma-

terials. After the return to Germany in 1999, he started to work on his diploma thesis, which investigated

the possibility of UHV waferbonding of SiC. The dependence of the bonding process on the surface pre-paration was investigated with molecular dynamics simulations at the Max-Planck-Institute for Micro-

structure Physics in Halle, Germany. After graduation he started his PhD work at the University of

Fribourg, Switzerland in the group of Prof. Philipp Aebi, where the full-hemispherical approach of pho-

toemission is used to study the surface atomic and electronic structure of novel materials. Christian

Koitzsch contributed to the understanding of the switchable mirror effect for the hydrogenation of rare

earth thin films, both on a theoretical level using Density Functional Theory and on an experimental level

with photoemission. These studies allowed a distinction between different theoretical models, which assign

either strong electron correlations or a conventional LDA gap underestimation as being responsible for thedisagreement between theory and experiment with regard to the gap size. Later on, now at the University of

Neuchatel, these full hemispherical photoemission studies were extended to ultra-thin films, namely

Mg(0 0 0 1) on W(1 1 0). The ECOSS prize 2003 was awarded for his achievements in photoemission

spectroscopy of quantum well states using a full-hemispherical in-plane dispersion mapping mode.

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doi:10.1016/S0039-6028(04)01120-3

Curriculum vitae

Personal details

Family name KoitzschFirst name ChristianDate of birth June 27, 1975Place of birth Eisenhuttenstadt, GermanyNationality GermanStatus Single

School1982–1991 Basic education in Bad Salzungen, Germany

1991–1994 High School, Stadtisches Gymnasium, Bad SalzungenDegree: Abitur

Studies1994–1997 Studies of Electrical Engineering,

Technische Universitat Ilmenau, Germany1997–1999 Studies of Physics,

North Carolina State University Raleigh, USA2000 Diploma work:

‘‘Waferbonding of Sic Surfaces’’2000–2002 Graduate student in the Solid State Physics Group of

Prof. Dr. Louis Schlapbach, University of Fribourg,Switzerland

2002–2004 Graduate student in the Solid State Physics Group ofProf. Dr. Philipp Aebi, University of Neuchatel, Switzer-land

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