Thursday, 04 October, 2001
Clemens Barth gewinnt den ECOSS-Preis 2001
ECOSS-Prize 2001 awarded to Clemens Barth on the 20th European Conference on Surface Science in Krakow, September 2001
Clemens Barth studied physics at Freie Universität Berlin where he graduated in 1998. Already his diploma thesis was a breakthrough in insulator surface analysis by demonstrating for the first time atomic resolution imaging and nanostructure formation on cleavage faces of fluoride single crystals with dynamic scanning force microscopy. He developed quantitative imaging on fluorides as a PhD student in the group of Prof. M. Reichling that moved to the Department Chemie of the LMU in 1999 and became a CENS member in 2000. In 2001 he developed direct atomic resolution imaging on oxide surfaces. After a first success with CaCO3, he solved the long standing problem of directly revealing atomic details on Al2O3 in its high temperature reconstruction. His measurements also revealed a remarkable power of this surface to support self-organization of stable hydroxyl clusters in regular nanostructures resembling the order of the high temperature reconstruction. The ECOSS prize 2001 was awarded to C. Barth for pioneering the field of atomic scale characterization of insulating surfaces with dynamic force microscopy.