Physics

Dean Prof. Dr. Michael Schreckenberg
Dean Prof. Dr. Michael Schreckenberg

A Bachelor’s degree programme in Energy Science has been introduced at the ­University of Duisburg-Essen to meet one of the major challenges of our time in an area in which corresponding study programmes are extremely rare. In the Faculty of Physics several groups are working intensively on questions relating to this field. Members of the theoretical physics group of Professor Dietrich Wolf, for example, investigate the possibility of using differences in temperature to generate currents, while the group of Professor Peter Kratzer is working on semiconductor nanostructures which could soon be found as nanowires in future solar cells.
Worldwide the race is on for the most interesting discoveries relating to graphene. In 2010 the Nobel Prize was awarded for the discovery of this “magic” carbon material. A number of research groups from the Faculty of Physics are part of the race with their own successful research projects. In the group of Professor Marika Schleberger graphene is irradiated by ions, producing modified structures that are of interest for electronic applications; electric currents in extremely small structures are studied with very high spatial ­resolution by the members of the research group of Professor Rolf Möller; and excitation states in superconductors, analyzed in the group of Profes­sor Bovensiepen, are important for the transport of energy.
The diversity of physics is also reflected in the diversity of research topics covered by the faculty. In the following research report, this diversity is represented in the field of nanomagnets by ­Professors Heiko Wende, Michael Farle and Peter Kratzer, for ultrafast phenomena by Professor Michael Horn-von Hoegen, for planet formation by Professor Gerhard Wurm, in the research groups on Physics Education for “Professional knowledge of science teachers” by Professor Hans E. Fischer, and for a PC-based test for process-based analysis of students’ experimental skills by Professor Heike Theyßen.