News

A diary of some remarkable events at the IAP and beyond …

2023-Dec-15

Today the winner of the Franz Viehböck Young Investigator Prize 2023 was officially announced. This year's prize, which is endowed with 1500 € travel funds, goes to Alexander Syböck from the Surface Physics Research Unit of IAP. The award ceremony took place during the Christmas party of the Institute, and the Prize was handed over by the institute’s director Fritz Aumayr and by Carina Viehböck, the granddaughter of Franz Viehböck. The corresponding Poster Session was held on Nov. 29th, 2023. Julia Linert, Alexander Redl and Anezka Majkova each received a recognition award (500 € travel funds each). Congratulations to all winners!

2023-Oct-11

Martina Fellinger of the Atomic and Plasma Physics Research Unit has received the esteemed Student Award at the Joint 26th International Conference on Ion Beam Analysis and 18th International Conference on Particle-Induced X-ray Emission (IBA&PIXE-2023) in Toyama, Japan for her oral presentation entitled “Effects of MeV ion beams on the performance of a high sensitivity quartz crystal microbalance” Congratulations, Martina!

2012-Oct-02

• With the arrival of Professor Amalio Fernandez-Pacheco Chicon and the first members of his team today, a new research area is being established at IAP. Welcome to Vienna and welcome to the IAP!

A portrait of new professor (in German) can be found here

2023-Oct-1

Change is a constant in the world of science and research, and on 1 October 2023, the Atomic and Plasma Physics Research Unit at the Institute of Applied Physics undergoes a major transformation. Fritz Aumayr, who has successfully led the group for 32 years, is passing the torch to his younger colleague Prof. Richard Wilhelm. Under Fritz's leadership, the group has become an internationally recognised centre for cutting-edge research in the physics of highly charged ions, ion-surface interaction studies and fusion edge plasma research. There is no doubt that this development will resume under the new leadership of Richard. Fritz will continue as Director of the Institute until the end of his term next year, when he will finally be able to concentrate fully on his research projects again.

2023-Sep-28

Erik Rheinfrank of the Surface Physics group has won the poster prize at the 24th International Conference on Non-Contact Atomic Force Microscopy (NCAFM2023) in Singapore, for his poster on “The quasicrystal-like surface of La_0.8Sr_0.2MnO₃(001)”. Congratulations, Erik!

2023-Sep-05

The Austrian Physical Society (Österreichische Physikalische Gesellschaft – ÖPG) annually awards three recent graduates the ÖPG dissertation prize for the best PhD Thesis. Igor Sokolović recently won this award for his PhD thesis entitled Complex oxide surfaces studied at the atomic scale with AFM/STM and DFT. Congratulations, Igor! With the prize come several rewards: an invitation for a talk (went well with a diverse audience) and an award ceremony (Prof. Christian Teichert hands out the award as the president of the ÖPG) at this year's annual meeting held in Basel, Switzerland, a cash prize (spent with friends and colleagues on food and drinks), an award certificate (safe in a drawer), and an ÖPG-decorated mug: guess which one gets the most exposure!

2023-July-31

We are thrilled to announce that Anna Niggas - a graduate student of Richard Wilhelm - has been awarded the prestigious Sheldon Datz Prize 2023 at the 33rd ICPEAC in Ottawa, Canada. The award ceremony took place today during the conference dinner. The prize, which includes a US$1,000 cash award and a certificate, recognizes Anna's remarkable contributions to the field of highly charged ion collisions with 2-dimensional materials. Congratulations Anna!

2023-Jul-21

The German Vacuum Society has awarded Moritz Eder from the Surface Physics group the VACOM sustainability prize (Nachhaltigkeitspreis) for his PhD thesis on Alcohol Photocatalysis on Titania in UHV. As a research stimulus, it comes with 15.000€ earmarked prize money for equipment. The generous support is happily received!

2023-July-17

The friction in our joints is extremely low - how is that physically possible at all? Measurements in the group of Markus Valtiner provide explanations and ideas for new treatment methods. See the original paper in Science Advances More details can be found in the TU press release

2023-June-29

In a captivating presentation, Ille Gebeshuber explored the fascinating connection between butterflies and dragons, focusing on the unique properties of butterfly wings. The lecture engaged young students with its jungle-themed attire and encouraged them to learn from nature's innovations.

read more.

2023-June-23

The Atomic and Plasma Physics Research Unit is delighted to share the news that Richard Wilhelm has received a well-deserved promotion to the position of Associate Professor with tenure (read more). It gives us great pleasure to see his time4ions group thriving and growing. Well done Richard!

2023-June-20

2023-June-15

The winners of the FUSENET Master Thesis Prize 2022 have been announced! The academic jury has recognized Tobias Peherstorfer as one of the three exceptional winners. Tobias, who was a master student in Fritz Aumayr's group, conducted a significant portion of his master thesis, titled “Fragmentation Analysis of Cryogenic Pellets for Disruption Mitigation,” at the Max Planck Institute for Plasma Physics in Garching, Germany. This achievement not only marks a great personal success for Tobias but also highlights the accomplishments of the Austrian Fusion Research Program, Fusion@ÖAW, and our collaborators at IPP Garching.

Prize Announcement on the FUSENET website

2023-June-12

• As of June 12, Benjamin Jakupovic has taken over the vacant position in the secretariat of the Institute. We warmly welcome him and look forward to working with him.

2023-May-8

Hard work pays off: Margareta Wagner has received an assistant professorship in the surface science group! Congratulations to your well-earned position, Margareta!

2023-May-2

For his outstanding achievements in the development and application of methods to elucidate the structure of the surfaces of metal alloys, surface oxides, bulk oxides and single atom catalysts using scanning probe microscopies and complementary DFT and quantitative LEED methods, the ICSOS Surface Structure Prize for 2023 will be awarded to Michael Schmid at this year’s ICSOS conference in Badersee. Congratulations, Michael!

2023-March-20

After successfully defending his habilitation on January 20, 2023, Richard Wilhelm was presented with the habilitation certificate today by Vice Rector Kurt Matyas. As “Privatdozent”, his new title, Richard now holds the Venia Docendi for the subject Experimental Physics. Congratulations, Richard!

2023-March-17

At this year's 3S*23 workshop in Courmayeur/Italy, the 3S-Poster Award, named after our deceased colleague Peter Varga, was awarded for the fifth time. The trophy went to Giada Franceschi, a PostDoc in the Surface Physics group at IAP, for her poster “Atomic-scale insights on clean and water-exposed muscovite mica by nc-AFM”. Congratulations, Giada!

2023-March-14

Our institute was well represented at this year's 3S*23 workshop in Courmayeur/Italy. We discussed and presented cutting edge science and had a great time skiing in the Italian Mont Blanc region.

2023-March-13

With 3 different projects the Institute of Applied Physics is a remarkable participant in the newly funded Cluster of Excellence “Materials for Energy Conversion and Storage” (MECS). Regarding the several million Euro € blessing for the institute, the euphoric saying of Andi Knoll at the EUROVISION Song Contest 2014 spontaneously comes to mind (slightly modified; © by Christian Maszl): “Jetzt hab'n uns Die den Schas gewonnen!” Congratulations to Ulrike Diebold, Gareth Parkinson & Markus Valtiner! (read more in the press release of FWF, and the press release of TU Wien (in German)).

2023-Feb-28

After 41 years of service to the Institute, Herbert Schmidt retires at the end of February. With a well attended retirement party, the Institute thanked him for the valuable work he has done in the Institute's workshop during all these years. You will be missed, Herbert!

2023-Feb-22

Together with Anna Steiger, Vice Rector Human Resources and Gender, Manuela Marik, as Chair of the Works Council, talks in a double interview about the work environment at TU Wien, its challenges, changes and further development (read more in German).

2023-Feb-13

Moritz Eder, PostDoc in Gareth Parkinson's group, has received confirmation that his proposal for the MSCA action 2022 is fit for being funded. Bringing expertise on UHV photocatalysis from his PhD at the TU Munich, the outstanding infrastructure of the IAP can take things to a new level. Under the acronym SCI-PHI, the EU will provide generous funding for two years of research on Single-atom Catalysis in Photocatalytic Investigations. Congratulations!

2023-Jan-13

Mica is a naturally occurring 2D mineral that has been around for ages in the scientific community. Its perfect cleavage planes have been exploited for numerous surface and interfacial studies. Despite the popularity of mica, some questions about the system still remain - for instance, what is the distribution of its surface K ions? In a recent paper in Nature Communications by Giada Franceschi et al., a team from the surface physics group at IAP shows clear nc-AFM images of muscovite mica cleaved in UHV, which unveil the arrangement of its surface K ions. They rationalize the distribution with the help of DFT and Monte Carlo simulations. The work is part of IAP's ERC project 'WatFun'. More details can be found at the TU press release, at idw-online.de, and at orf.at.

2022-Dec-27

Today, Paul Szabo received the 2022 Loschmidt Prize from the Austrian Chemical Physics Society (CPG). Paul is one of two recipients of this year's Loschmidt Prize, which is awarded annually by the CPG for an outstanding doctoral thesis in the field of physics or chemistry. The award was presented by CPG Secretary General Mrs. Christl Langstadlinger. Congratulations!

Paul Szabo completed his dissertation entitled “Novel Insights into Ion-Solid Interaction: Case Studies for Space Weathering and Nuclear Fusion Research” in June 2021 under the supervision of Fritz Aumayr and was awarded a "promotio sub auspiciis praesidentis rei publicae" in January 2022, see the Press release of TU Wien. Since Nov. 2021, Dr. Paul Szabo has been working as a postdoc at the Space Sciences Laboratory (SSL) at UC Berkeley.

2022-Dec-16

Today the winner of the Franz Viehböck Young Investigator Prize 2022 was officially announced. This year's prize, which is endowed with 1000 € travel funds, goes to Markus Felber from the Applied Interface Physics Research Unit of IAP. The award ceremony took place during the Christmas party of the Institute, and the Prize was handed over by the institute’s director Fritz Aumayr and by Carina Viehböck, the granddaughter of Franz Viehböck. The corresponding Poster Session was held on Nov. 30th, 2022. Johannes Brötzner & Florian Altmann each received a recognition award (500 € travel funds each). Congratulations to all winners!

2022-Dec-02

The Austrian Science Fund FWF has officially accepted the proposal TU-D, co-authored by Ulrike Diebold, Gareth Parkinson and Richard Wilhelm. The FWF will continue to fund an interdisciplinary doctoral school with 2 mio. € at the TU Wien, which focuses on so-called two-dimensional materials - compounds which consist of a single atomic layer and bear immense potential for various technical applications. It is part of the FWF program doc.funds, coordinated by Florian Libisch from the TU Wien.

2022-Nov-28

* When charged particles are shot through ultra-thin layers of material, sometimes spectacular micro-explosions occur, sometimes the material remains almost intact. In a collaboration of the Atomic and Plasma Physics Research Unit of IAP with Christoph Lemell, Professor at the Institute for Theoretical Physics of TU Wien, it has now been explained in which situations holes are formed and in which they are not - and that this depends on the electron mobility in the material and the charge state of the projectile. The results have been published in “Nano Letters”.

Link to original publication in Nano Letters, Press release of TU Wien (in German), Press release of TU Wien (in English)

2022-Nov-09

Our lungs, brains, and reproductive organs depend on the coordinated motion of hundreds of thousands whip like cellular appendages, so called cilia, that collectively drive fluid and keep their surfaces clean and functioning. For this to work cilia need to synchronize their motions over length scales that order of magnitudes bigger than the individual cilium. In their paper, published in PNAS, scientist from the Theory of Living Matter Group (headed by Sebastian Fürthauer from the Biophysics Research Unit at IAP, TU Wien), and the University of Southern California, show how cilia can synchronize through fluid mediated interactions alone and self-organize into metachronal waves that efficiently pump fluid along ciliated surfaces. They further provide a theoretical framework, which enables the study of ciliated surfaces in the context of a continuum theory. This advance will enable the systematic numerical study of large and geometrically complex ciliated structures, such as our organs, which had been prohibitively expensive with previously available methods.

Link to original publication in PNAS, Press release of TU Wien (in German), Press release of TU Wien (in English),

2022-Nov-09

Gareth Parkinson has officially been elected as Fellow of the AVS at the 68th AVS Symposium & Exhibition in Pittsburgh. Only 0.5% of AVS Platinum members “who have made sustained and outstanding technical contributions in areas of interest to AVS” receive this prestigious award. Gareth received his for “outstanding contributions to our understanding of surface chemical processes using well-defined model systems, particularly in single-atom catalysis, and for outstanding work on iron oxide surfaces”. Hats off, Gareth!

2022-Oct-20

Daniela Leitner, a former graduate of the Atomic and Plasma Physics Research Unit of IAP (PhD in 1995) has now been elected as 2022 American Physical Society (APS) Fellow. Daniela is currently the division deputy in the Engineering Division of the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory in Berkely California. She is recognized for her work on electron cyclotron resonance ion sources that are widely used as high-charge state ion injectors for heavy ion facilities. Congratulations, Daniela, we are very proud of you! Read more.

For fusion reactors like ITER, plasma instabilities are a major challenge. By experiments carried aout at the Max Planck Institute for Plasma Physics in Garching, Georg Harrer and other members of the Atomic and Plasma Physics Research Unit of IAP could now demonstrate: There is an operational regime for fusion reactors which avoids this problem. Instead of large potentially destructive instabilities, one intentionally accepts many small instabilities that do not pose a problem for the reactor’s walls. The results have now been published in the journal as Editors' Suggestion and featured in physics.

Link to original publication in Physical Review Letters, Press release of TU Wien (in German), Press release of TU Wien (in English), viewpoint article in Physics, Press release by IPP Garching, APA article, orf.at, Der Standard, ÖAW, EUROfusion, Fusion News (youtube), Wikipedia.

The online magazine “Physics” of the American Physical Society has featured this publication with a viewpoint article written by Saskia Mordijck. And “PhysicsWorld” from IOP Publishing, which covers the big stories and key results that matter to scientists in all parts of the world, covers the paper in an (editor's Choice) article written by Sam Jarman.

2022-Sep-28

Florian Kraushofer's PhD thesis was judged to be the best dissertation in physics produced in Austria during 2022 by the Austrian physical society (ÖPG). In recognition he received an invited talk at the ÖPG annual meeting, a fancy certificate, and a check for 1000 euros. Not bad!

2022-Sep-15

Serial prizewinner Lena Puntscher was at it again in Japan earlier this month, winning the prize for best student presentation at the IVC (International Vaccum Congress) annual meeting in Sapporo. Congratulations Lena, but to be honest we have come to expect nothing less!

2022-Sep-06

Austrian's federal president Alexander van der Bellen has awarded the professional title of “Regierungsrätin” (“Government Counsil”) to AmtsDir.in Manuela Marik by resolution of 04.07.2022. The certificate was personally handed over to Ms. Marik by the Rectorate today. Our institute heartily joins the congratulations of Rector S. Seidler and Vice-Rector A. Steiger.

2022-Sep-02

At the ECOSS 35, the European Conference on Surface Science in Luxembourg, Igor Sokolović wins the Prize for the Best Oral Presentation, for his talk entitled “Two distinct two-dimensional electron gases appearing at truly bulk-terminated, cleaved SrTiO₃(001)”. Congrats, Igor, well done!

2022-Aug-22

* When ions penetrate a material, highly complex processes take place - so fast that they could hardly be studied until now. A team from the Atomic and Plasma Physics Research Unit of IAP in collaboration with colleagues from Uni Wien, Germany (Kiel, Dresden, Jena) and Ireland (Dublin) has now succeeded in analyzing on a time scale of one femtosecond what happens to the individual particles involved, when an ion penetrates 2 dimensional materials such as graphene or molybdenum disulphide. A careful analysis of the electrons that are emitted in the process allows to reconstruct the temporal sequence of the processes. The results have been published in “Physical Review Letters” and selected as “Editors' Suggestion”.

Link to original publication in Physical Review Letters, Press release of TU Wien (in German), Press release of TU Wien (in English), Press release CAU Kiel APA article, Der Standard, orf.at, Wiener Zeitung

2022-July-25

The special properties of polar oxide surfaces have been fascinating scientists for decades. A recent paper in the journal Nature Communications describes the many configurations electrons can assume on the as-cleaved surface of KTaO₃, which is an intrinsically polar material. The paper is based on a collaboration with physicists from Uni Wien within the SFB TACO.

More detailed descriptions can be found in press releases, here and here.

2022-Jul-10

Buildings made of porous rock can weather over the years. Now, for the first time, Markus Valtiner and his Applied Interface Physics Research Unit have studied in detail how silicate nanoparticles can help save them. Together with colleagues from the University of Oslo his group has now been able to clarify exactly how this artificial hardening process takes place through elaborate experiments at the DESY synchrotron in Hamburg and with microscopic examinations in Vienna. That way, the team could determine which nanoparticles are best suited for this purpose.

Link to original publication in Langmuir Press release of TU Wien (in German), Press release of TU Wien (in English),

2022-June-27

During the opening ceremony of the 48th EPS Conference on Plasma Physics 2022, the winners of this year's FuseNet Master Thesis Prizes were announced. To promote excellence in fusion research, FuseNet awards the Master Thesis Prizes to students who write outstanding master theses that have been conducted and completed (in part) throughout Europe. With her thesis entitled “Ballooning Stability Analysis of the ASDEX-Upgrade small-ELM regime” Lidija Radovanovic from the Atomic and Plasma Physics Research Unit of IAP was among the 5 winners. A great personal success for Mrs. Radovanovic, but also for the Atomic and Plasma Physics Research Unit at IAP and for the whole Austrian Fusion Research Programm Fusion@ÖAW.

Prize Announcement on the EPS Conference on Plasma Physics 2022 website

2022-May-3

The Austrian Academy of Sciences (ÖAW) has elected 45 new members to its ranks. In this year's elections, 14 female researchers and 31 male researchers from a wide variety of disciplines in the humanities, social and cultural sciences as well as mathematics, natural and technical sciences were awarded membership of the ÖAW for their outstanding scientific achievements. Gerhard Schütz from the biophysics research unit at IAP was elected as a corresponding member. Congratulations! read more.

2022-April-22

On April 22, 2022 the General Assembly of the Austrian Academy of Sciences (ÖAW) elected our colleague Ulrike Diebold as the new Vice President of ÖAW. Congratulations! Her election completes the management team of Austria's largest non-university institution for basic research. The newly elected Presiding Committee consists of (from left to right): Christiane Wendehorst (Head of the ÖAW Division of Humanities and the Social Sciences), Heinz Faßmann (President of ÖAW), Ulrike Diebold (Vice-president of ÖAW), Wolfgang Baumjohann (Head of the Division of Mathematics and the Natural Sciences). read more.

2022-April-4

So called “single-atom” catlysis is all the rage in catalysis research - a team from the surface physics group at IAP together with theorist colleagues from The University of Vienna have shown that metastable Pt dimers form when the single Pt atoms are exposed to CO, and that these are really responsible for the CO oxidation activity observed. The paper appeared in the journal Science Advances.

Link to TU Wien Press release (in English) Link to TU Wien Press release (in German)

2022-March-30

The IAP Spring Party organized by members of the Atomic and Plasma Physics research group was a great success. It was held as a replacement for the IAP Christmas party, which had to be cancelled due to covid already for the 2nd time. After 2 years of pandemic, the more than 170 participants obviously enjoyed to finally meet again in person and talk face to face. As a novelty this year, the 1st IAP Academy Awards were held, an award for the best submitted re-enacted scenes from well-known movies and TV series - of course somewhat reinterpreted to institute-relevant content.

2022-March-19

At this year's 3S*22 workshop in St. Christoph/Arlberg, the 3S-Poster Award, named after our deceased colleague Peter Varga, was awarded for the third time. The trophy went to Johannes Brötzner, a master student in the Atomic and Plasma Physics group at IAP, for his poster “An optimised Quartz Crystal Microbalance setup to investigate the sputtering behaviour of bulk targets”. Congratulations, Johannes!

2022-March-15

Every two years, members of our institute organize the legendary Symposium on Surface Science 3S in St. Christoph am Arlberg, Austria. 3S*20 in March 2020 was the last meeting just a week before the first lockdown due to the covid-19 pandemic. And for many of us 3S*22 in 2022 was the first in-person meeting after (actually still during) the pandemic. The institute was well represented by a large delegation. We discussed and presented cutting edge science and had a great time skiing in the Austrian Alps.

2022-Jan-26

Paul Szabo graduates with a "promotio sub auspiciis praesidentis rei publicae". This honour is based on top academic performance and is awarded to only a handful of PhD students in the whole country. With a GPA of 1.0 (the best grade on Austria's 5-point scale) from high school all the way through his studies at the university, Paul Szabo is one of the selected few. Todays ceremony was supervised by the Austrian Federal President Alexander Van der Bellen. The laudation for Paul Szabo was given by his PhD supervisor Fritz Aumayr. After the actual doctoral graduation with the oath and pledge, the Austrian President presented the ring of honor with the inscription sub auspiciis Praesidentis to Dr. Paul Szabo. A big day for Paul, the institute, and the atomic and plasma physics group.

Press release of TU Wien (in German), ORF news (in German)

2021-Dec-03

Today the winner of the Franz Viehböck Young Investigator Prize 2021 was officially announced. This year's prize, which is endowed with 1000 € travel funds, goes to Lena Haager from the surface physics research unit of IAP. Her poster presented during the Franz Viehböck Poster Session held on Nov. 29th, 2021 was able to convince the jury. Martina Fellinger and Simon Jaritz each receive a recognition award (500 € travel funds each). Congratulations to all winners!

2021-Nov-05

On 175 days in the German Physical Society (DPG) anniversary year, interesting physicists are introduced with a post at Instagram, who today or in their time, through their field of activity, their commitment or their thoughts, have or have had an inspiring effect on other people or even the whole society. We are proud that Ille Gebeshuber from the Atomic and Plasma Physics Group of IAP has been selected by members of the DPG as one of them. Congratulations!

You can read an interview with her on the DPG web-page (in German).

2021-Oct-21

Janine Schwestka is one of two recipients of this year's Loschmidt Prize. This prize is awarded annually by the Austrian Chemical Physics Society CPG for an outstanding PhD thesis. Janine Schwestka received her doctorate in June 2020 under the guidance of Fritz Aumayr and Richard Wilhelm; her thesis is entitled “On the Charge Exchange Dynamics of Highly Charged Ions in atomically thin solids”. Dr. Schwestka is currently working as a materials engineer at RUAG Space, one of the leading suppliers of products for satellites and launch rockets, in Vienna, Austria. Congratulations!

Press release of TU Wien (in German), Official Announcement at the web-site of CPG.

2021-Oct-14

The class of 2019 - 2021 of the MSc. Program “Engineering Managment” of the TU Academy for Continuing Education has selected Ille Gebeshuber for the Best Lecturer Award. Congratulations!

2021-Oct-11

• Ms. Rinoa Beck has joined our secretarial team, replacing Maria Steiner who has retired. Welcome to the Institute!

2021-Sep-20

Beams of energetic ions are used to clean or nanostructure various materials via sputtering. Christian Cupak and his collborators from the Atomic and Plasma Physics Group of IAP have now been able to explain how the sputtering process depends on the roughness of the surface. Using experiments and simulations they were able to show that the mean inclination angle of the surface (accessibly e.g. by atomic force microscopy or other high resolution microscopy methods) describes the final outcome of the sputtering process much better than other roughness parameters that have been used so far.

Link to original publication in Applied Surface Science Press release of TU Wien (in German), Press release of TU Wien (in English),

2021-Sep-16

After many years of administrative service, first assisting the research group CMS at IAP, then the research division Biophysics of IAP, Maria Steiner will start her well-deserved retirement at the end of September. To mark the occasion, there was a small celebration for Maria at the Institute today. The IAP wishes Maria all the best for this new chapter in her life.

2021-Aug-16

What happens when ions are passing through solid materials? It is nearly impossible to observe this directly, but the Atomic and Plasma Physics Group of IAP has found a way to overcome this problem. By peeling graphite layer by layer Anna Niggas and her collaborators uncovered how ions recapture their electrons when moving through solid material. The new measurements show that the ions obey remarkably simple laws.

Link to original publication in the Nature Journal: Communications Physics, Press release of TU Wien (in German), Press release of TU Wien (in English), ORF.at, die Presse. The work was also featured in Scientific American.

2021-May-09

On May 9, Marie Preimesberger from our Electronics Workshop gave birth to her first son Erhard. Mother and son are doing well and the institute congratulates Erhard's young parents.

2021-May-06

The American Academy of Arts and Sciences was founded in 1780. According to its webpage, the Academy “honors excellence and convenes leaders from every field of human endeavor…”. Amongst its newest members, elected in 2021, is Ulrike Diebold. TU Wien Press release (in German)

2021-May-5

T cells use their antigen receptors like sticky fingers - a team from the biophysics group at IAP together with colleagues from MedUni Vienna was able to observe them doing so. The paper appeared in the journal Nature Communications.

Link to TU Wien Press release (in English) Link to TU Wien Press release (in German)

2021-April-28

The Brønsted acidity is a fundamental chemical quantity, well-understood and tabulated for molecules. The surface physics group has now devised a novel method to determine the acidity of solid surfaces, atom-by-atom. Margareta Wagner et al. used the functionalized tip of a non-contact AFM how probe individual hydroxyls on an In₂O₃ surface. In conjunction with DFT-based modelling by Bernd Meyer from the FAU Erlangen, proton affinities can be assigned to individual surface atoms on oxides. The paper appeared in the journal Nature and was featured in Physics Today.

Link to TU Wien Press release Austrian Press Agency APA (in German) die Presse (in German) chemie.de Scienta Omicron Newsletter Physics Today Chemistry World

2021-April-18

Are you interested in visiting a physics labs? The Atomic and Plasma Physics group has produced a short video to explain what they are currently working on. Join them on a “virtual” lab tour.

2021-March-09

* “Race for nuclear fusion - and Austria is right in the middle of it” ist the titel of a recent online report of the Austrian newspaper Die Presse on fusion research in Austria and at IAP in particular. The article features interviews with IAP researchers Christian Cupak, Paul Szabo and Fritz Aumayr. Here ist the link (article in German).

2021-Feb-01

In our immune system, T-cells are responsible for recognizing and fighting viruses and bacteria. Joschka Hellmeier and Eva Sevcsik of the biophysics group at IAP have devised a DNA origami-based biomimetic interface to study the molecular details of this recognition process. The results of the study were now published in PNAS.

Link to PNAS paper Link to TU press release (in English) Link to TU press release (in German)

2021-Feb-01

Gareth Parksinson joined our institute in 2010. Since then, he has done real well: he has published great scientific results (some of them featured on this webpage), he has acquired an FWF Start and and ERC Consolidator grant, and he has established himself as an international leader in the emerging field of 'single atom catalysis'. On top, he has been a wonderful advisor, teacher, and colleague. We are extremely happy that his achievements have now been honored with promotion to 'University Professor'. Congrats, Gareth - well deserved!

2021-Jan-21

• A new paper of the surface physics group was published in Science on Thursday. It contains a detailed study of several model “Single-Atom Catalyst” systems, and is the result of several years of work. Unfortunately celebrating in person is a no-go, so a Zoom session had to suffice for now.

*Article: Science 371, 375-379 (2021) DOI: 10.1126/science.abe5757

• TU press release in English and German

2021-Jan-13

• For our newly-funded “Spezialforschungsbereich” TACO we are looking to fill a post-doc position to mainly help with the administrative, financial, and outreach aspects of the new collaborative research project.

More details can be found here: job_ad_science_manager_sfb_taco.pdf.

Applications and inquiries should be directed to the coordinator, Ulrike Diebold, preferably before February 15, 2021.

2020-Dec-22

For her special commitment as an external docent in the teaching of TU Wien, for her outstanding achievements in the field of plasma physics and fusion research and for her merits in the supervision of numerous TU students in the context of their scientific theses at the fusion experiment ASDEX Upgrade, Austria's Federal President Alexander Van der Bellen has followed the suggestion of the Faculty of Physics and the Rectorate of TU Wien, and awarded the honorary title of “University Professor” to Mrs. Univ.Doz. Dr. Elisabeth Wolfrum. We congratulate Professor Wolfrum on this honor and hope that this will further intensify the good cooperation between the TU Wien and the Max Planck Institute for Plasma Physics in Garching near Munich in the field of fusion research.

2020-Dec-21

When T-cells of our immune system become active, tiny traction forces at the molecular level play an important role. They have now been studied by an international team including Gerhard Schütz from the biophysics group of IAP.

Link to original publication in the Nano Letters, Press release of TU Wien (in English), Press release of TU Wien (in German)

2020-Dec-16

• The Austrian Science Fund, FWF, funds our “Spezialforschungsbereich” (SFB) entitled „Taming Complexity in Materials Modeling (TACO)“. In this project, nine research groups will work towards obtaining a better fundamental understanding of complex, multi-component metal oxides. We will develop novel computational approaches based on machine learning, and benchmark computations with experiments that span environments form ultrahigh vacuum to ambient pressures and the aqueous phase, with samples ranging from single crystals to nanomaterials.

The project is coordinated by Ulrike Diebold from our institute, and Gareth Parkinson, Michele Riva, and Michael Schmid are members of the consortium.

TU Press release 2020 and TU Press release 2021(both in German)

2020-Dec-11

• With great sadness we announce that the former director of the institute emeritus professor Franz Viehböck passed away on December 11th, 2020, only a few days after his 97th birthday. Under his leadership 1970 - 1987, the institute developed into an internationally renowned center for basic research in the field of surface physics and analysis, particle/laser-surface interaction, and ion and plasma physics. The Institute of Applied Physics will continue to honor Franz Viehböck’s memory.

Parte, Obituary, Nachruf, Curriculum Vitae, List of Publications.

2020-Dec-15

At today's meeting of the Chemisch-Physikalische Gesellschaft (Chemical-Physical Society Vienna, CPG), a Learned Society founded 1869, Peter Lackner of the Surface Physics group will be awarded the Loschmidt Prize of the CPG for his PhD thesis Surface Science Studies on Zirconia Thin-Film Models Systems. With his PhD thesis, Peter has developed a model system to make the surfaces of ZrO₂ accessible to surface science analysis methods and he could solve many open questions, e.g. why ZrO₂-supported metal catalysts display the SMSI (strong metal-support interaction) effect. Congratulations!

2020-Dec-8

The Ertl Lecture Award was established in 2008 by the three Berlin universities (Humboldt University, Technical University and Free University) and the Fritz Haber Institute of the Max Planck Society to commemorate the awarding of the Nobel Prize to Gerhard Ertl in 2007. The prize includes a one-week research stay at the participating Berlin institutions and a festive evening lecture. This year the prize goes to Ulrike Diebold from our Institute.

The award ceremony and the lecture entitled “Oxide Surface Chemistry at the Atomic Scale” was streamed on Thursday, 10 December 2020.

A video can be viewed here.

Announcement by the Fritz-Haber-Institute Press release TU Wien

2020-Nov-30

What causes the “space weathering” on the Mars moon Phobos? Results of laboratory experiments performed by Paul Szabo and collaborators in the Atomic and Plasma Physics group of IAP give new insights and show that beside the solar wind also the irradiation by particles from Mars plays a decisive role there. These considerations could soon play an important role in the evaluation of real Phobos samples since in 2024 a Japanese space mission will take soil samples from Phobos and bring them back to Earth. The work is part of an international FWF-SNF project together with the University of Bern.

Link to original publication in the Journal of Geophysical Research: Planets, Press release of TU Wien (in German), Press release of TU Wien (in English) ORF.at

2020-Nov-24

Crucial new technologies such as hydrogen production or carbon capture require new catalysts. Experiments in the Applied Interface Physics Research Devision of IAP headed by Markus Valtiner now show: It's not just the material that matters, but also its atomic surface structure (read more).

The results have been published in the journal ACS Applied Material Interfaces.

• TU press release in English and German

2020-Nov-20

The German Physical Society just announced that Richard Wilhelm receives the Gaede Prize 2021 for his work on ion interaction with 2D materials. Congratulations! The prize will be handed during the DPG Solid State Physics meeting next year, which is postponed until fall 2021.

Press release of TU Wien (in German), Press release of DPG (in German)

2020-Nov-19

In materials research, so-called “Auger electrons” also play an important role - they can be emitted by atoms if an electron is first removed from one of the inner electron shells. But now Wolfgang Werner from the acp Research Devision of IAP and and his collaborators have succeeded in explaining a completely different type of electron emission, which can occur in carbon materials such as graphite (read more) The results are published in Physical Review Letters

• TU press release in English and German

2020-Oct-21

He and his team had already received the Best Lecture Award with their lecture series on “Grundlagen der Physik” for several years (2017 - 2019) in a row. Now Fritz Aumayr has been awarded as Best Teacher of the Faculty of Physics 2020. After Martin Müller (Best Teacher Award 2018) he is already the second member of our institute to receive the Best Teacher Award. Congratulations!

Press release of TU Wien (in German)

2020-Oct-13

Iridium oxide is an excellent catalyst for electrochemical reactions, and used for the production of hydrogen from water by electrolysis. Members of the IAP surface physics group and the Technical University of Munich have discovered that its surfaces – where catalysis happens – are quite different from what scientists have previously thought. The atoms in the near-surface layers rearrange, stabilizing otherwise unfavorable surface orientations. These structures have been found by machine learning and perfectly agree with experimental findings. The results are published in Physical Review Letters.

• Preprint on arXiv · Article: Phys. Rev. Lett. 125, 206101 (2020)
• TU press release in English and German

2020-Oct-09

* In today's Austrian newspaper DerStandard Fritz Aumayr gives an interview on the prospects and difficulties of international fusion research. Read the full article (in German) or online.

2020-Oct-08

Super resolution microscopy is used all over the world today, but it can be deceptive: Members of our biophysics group in collboration with colleagues from MedUni Vienna show that images are often misinterpreted.

Link to original publication in Nature Communication, Press release of TU Wien (in German),

2020-Oct-1

• Since October 1, 2020, Ms. Karolina Riegler is strengthening our administrative team in the secretariat. Welcome to the institute!

2020-Sep-24

Anna Niggas from the Atomic and Plasma Physics Group of IAP received the Honorary Award of the Austrian Ministry for Education, Science and Research (BMBWF)! The prize is awarded annually to the best graduates of all Austrian universities and Anna is one of them! The award is also worth 3,000 EUR and will be handed over at the award ceremony on November 20th, 2020, in the “Aula of Sciences”in Vienna.

2020-July-31

Carving well-defined holes into a stack of 2D materials is not an easy task, especially if only one atomic layer shall be modified not harming any material underneath. With slow highly charged ions the Atomic and Plasma Physics group was able to achieve this ultimate surface sensitivity by developing a technique for processing novel 2D-materials on an atomic scale. Their most recent work on nanostructuring of freestanding MoS2/graphene heterostructures with highly charged ions was just published by ACS Nano. The fruitful collaboration with the group of Jani Kotakoski (University Vienna) made sample preparation as well as exceptional quality microscopy available. The experiments demonstrated that one can remove the very first monolayer of these structures on a tiny area of only a few square-nanometers.

The results not only show that the ion’s potential energy is deposited in the topmost surface layer, but also that the energy remains in that particular layer. Interesting applications are just ahead!

Link to original publication in ACS Nano, Press release of TU Wien (in German), Press release of TU Wien (in English)

2020-July-20

This year’s Max Auwärter Award goes to Richard Wilhelm of the Atomic and Plasma Physics group! Every two years, the Max Auwärter Foundation in Balzers, Lichtenstein, awards the renowned Max Auwärter Prize, worth 10,000 euros, in memory of the founder of the “Gerätebauanstalt Balzers”, now Oerlikon Balzers AG. It is awarded to persons up to the age of 35 who have made special achievements in physical or chemical research on surfaces, interfaces or thin films. The Max Auwärter Prize honors significant work in the fields of surface science, interface physics, as well as anorganic and organic thin films. A list of previous awardees can be found here. As one can see, a former member of the Institute's staff, Stefan Cernusca, has already received the Max Auwärter Prize in 2004.

Wa are all proud about your success, Richard! Congratulations!

For more Details please read the TU Wien News.

2020-June-30

After more than eight, highly successful years in the surface physics group of our institute, Martin Setvin follows a call to Charles University in Prague, where he assumes a professorship. He will be the head of the Thin Films Group at Departement of Surface and Plasma Physics. For the next two years he will still conduct some research at our institute, however, supported by his FWF grant SUPER.

We extend our warmest congratulations!

2020-June-09

For some molecules it is quite challenging to take images without altering them. O₂, for example, dissociates into two atoms when hit with the electrons that are used in traditional imaging techniques that provide the necessary resolution. Using non-contact AFM with and a tip with one single oxygen atom at the very end, the surface physics group has managed to provide undisturbed images of O₂ adsorbed on TiO₂. This system has been investigated by many research groups throughout the years, and the new images have resolved several mysteries. The results were published in the journal PNAS.

TU Wien press release (in German) Eureka Alert (in English) ORF News

Original Publication: I. Sokolovic et al., Resolving the adsorption of molecular O₂ on the rutile TiO₂(110)-(1×1) surface by non-contact atomic force microscopy, Proceeding of the National Academy of Sciences (2020)

2020-May-15

There were two baby newborns at the Institute of Applied Physics today: Johannes (left in the picture) son of Markus Valtiner and Josefa (right) daughter of Herbert Biber were born almost simultaneously. A warm welcome!

2020-May-04

The university is slowly opening up again, and we can start some of our experiments. No more than half of our staff is allowed to be present at any time, distance measures are in place and wearing masks is mandatory.

2020-April-14

The general staff of our institute is also currently working in the home office. In a virtual meeting today, first experiences were exchanged and problems were discussed. As you can see, despite the adverse circumstances, everyone kept a healthy sense of humour.

2020-March-31

Ulrike Diebold is awarded an ERC Grant. In her project “Water at Oxides: A Fundamental Approach” or, in short,WatFun, she and her team will develop novel techniques to investigate 'wet' oxide surfaces at the atomic level. The project relies heavily on the surface physics' group capability of combining liquid water with UHV-based measurements, in particular with non-contact AFM. The planned reserach also builds on results from her previous ERC Advanced Grant 'OxideSurfaces'.

ERC Advanced Grant Results TU press release (in German) ORF der standard Cost-Action webpage

2020-March-23

With great sadness we announce that our colleague Gerhard Betz passed away on Wednesday, March 18, 2020.

The Institute of Applied Physics mourns the loss of a long-time colleague and a good friend!

Gerhard Betz: Obituary, Nachruf

2020-March-17

As the corona crisis affects our lives worldwide, we too must take a break from experimental work. The safety and well-being of our institute members and friends at the university is more important, so we all work from our home offices. Group meetings are held via video conferencing tools.

Please stay home and wait for the crisis to pass!

2020-March-06

At this year's 3S*20 workshop in St. Christoph/Arlberg, the 3S-Poster Award, named after our recently deceased colleague Peter Varga, was awarded for the second time. The trophy went to Anna Niggas, a PhD student in the Atomic and Plasma Physics group at IAP, for her poster “How to clean a sample when sputtering is not possible because the sample has only one atomic layer”. Congratulations, Anna!

2020-March-05

Every two years, members of our institute organize the legendary Symposium on Surface Science 3S in St. Christoph am Arlberg, Austria. This year we were represented by a particularly large delegation. We discussed and presented cutting edge science (including 7 lectures and 8 posters from IAP and ITP) and had a great time skiing in the Austrian Alps.

2019-Dec-13

The Christian Doppler Prize is an award presented bi-annually by the Salzburg provincial government for the promotion of scientific work in 4 categories. This year Mario Brameshuber received the award in the category “Molecular Biosciences and Neurosciences“. Congratulations!

Offical announcement of the 2019 winners, Newseintrag Land Salzburg

2019-Dec-12

Christian Cupak from the Atomic and Plasma Physics Group is the recipient of this year's Franz Viehböck Young Investigator Prize. This Prize carries the name of the founder of our institute, Prof. Franz Viehböck (director 1966 – 1987) and is endowed with a sum of 1,000.- Euro. It is awarded annually by the Institute of Applied Physics of TU Wien to the student with the best performance in a poster competition. Emeritus Prof. F. Viehböck and the current director of IAP Prof. F. Aumayr handed over the prize to the winner during the institute's Christmas party. Congratulations!

2019-Dec-10

• Jan Balajka is one of two recipients of this year's Loschmidt Prize. This prize is awarded annually by the Austrian Chemical Physics Society CPG for an outstanding PhD thesis. Jan Balajka received his doctorate in 2018 under the guidance of Ulrike Diebold and Michael Schmid; his thesis is entitled “Interaction of Titanium Dioxide Surfaces with Liquid Water”. Dr. Balajka is currently a post-doc at Cornell University, USA. Congratulations!

2019-Dec-10

Gareth Parkinson receives a prestigious 'Consolidator Grant' from the European Research Council, ERC for his project entitled “E-SAC: Evolving Single-Atom Catalysis: Fundamental Insights for Rational Design”. He will utilise the tools of surface science to design and investigate systems, where the size of catalytically active nanoclusters is pushed to the ultimate limit: single atoms. Gareth has been working on this general theme for several years, funded by an FWF START prize that he received in 2015. In E-SAC, Gareth and his team will significantly expand the types of materials and reactions studied. They will devise experiments that connect ultrahigh vacuum surface science with 'realistic' conditions and environments.

Press release TU Wien (in German)

2019-Dec-06

Since 1947, the City of Vienna has been awarding its Science Prize. The list of winners includes renowned scientists such as Lise Meitner, Erwin Schrödinger, and Viktor E. Frankl. This year the prize goes to Prof. Ulrike Diebold from our Institute of Applied Physics (Press release of the city of Vienna (in German)). During the award ceremony at Vienna's city hall, she was introduced with a short video (in Viennese German).

Press release TU Wien

2019-Dec-01

Emeritus Prof. Franz Viehböck, the institute's first director from 1966 to 1987, celebrated his 96th birthday today together with his family and a small delegation from the IAP celebrated with him. We wish him a long life in health.

2019-Nov-28

The Poster Session for the Franz Viehböck Young Investigator Prize 2019 was well attended this afternoon. 13 young scientists presented their work to an interested audience. The large number of excellent poster presentations made it anything but easy for the jury. The winner will be announced at the institute's Christmas party.

2019-Nov-15

For his outstanding habilitation thesis, Martin Setvin receives the 'Förderpreis des Kardinal Innitzer Studienfonds', which is awarded annually by the Archbishop of Vienna, Cardinal Schönborn. Setvin is also a recent recipient of a prestigious GACR EXPRO grant, which supports excellence in fundamental research. His project “Ferroelectric Perovskites for Energy Conversion” was funded with 1.3 M Euros. He will use this money to build his research group when he assumes his professorship at Charles University in Prague.

2019-Nov-14

Ulrike Diebold receives an honorary doctorate from the Brno University of Technology (VUT), in a ceremony as part of the celebrations of the university's 120th anniversary. The ties between TU Wien and VUT have become even stronger.

Press release (in Czech)

2019-Nov-01

Richard Wilhelm (134-03) has been appointed as Assistant Professor (tenure track) for “Ion and Plasma Physics” starting on November 1st, 2019.

Congratulations to Richard!

2019-Aug-19

Ion beam radiation therapy uses complicated atomic-physical effects to fight cancer cells. Janine Schwestka and co-workers have now identified a new mechanism that directly emitts low energy electrons, which are very effective in destroying cancer cells. An effect that has received little attention in this context plays an important role, the so-called “Interatomic Coulomb Decay” (ICD). The result has now been published in the Journal of Physical Chemistry Letters.

Link to original publication in J.Phys.Chem.Lett., Press release of TU Wien (in German), Press release of TU Wien (in English)

2019-June-17

• Richard Wilhelm of the Atomic and Plasma Physics Research Division of IAP has received the START Prize, the highest Austrian award for outstanding young researchers. Congratulations! The prize money will enable him to build the world's first ultrafast ion source at TU Wien within the next six years. With now four START awardees, one Wittgenstein laureate, and two recipients of ERC grants, Richard also makes our institute one of the most successful institutions in this respect!

TU press release (German)

2019-June-13

• It already seems to be some kind of tradition. For the third time in a row (after 2017 & 2018), the Institute of Applied Physics won the Best Lecture Award of the Faculty of Physics of the TU Vienna in 2019. The prize, which honors outstanding achievements in teaching, goes to the “VU Grundlagen der Physik Ia und Ib”. Congratulations to all lecturers (Aumayr, Werner, Müller, Laimer, Wilhelm, Brameshuber, Gebeshuber, Mittendorfer, Schmid, Mohn, Setvin, Parkinson, Sponar, Kluck, Ingerle & Gugler). (read more).

2019-Apr-15

• Michele Riva assumes his new duties as senior scientist. He will spearhead our efforts in the epitaxial growth of complex metal oxides, and support the surface physics group and IAP. Congratulations, Michele!

• We changed the Canon Printer you can still print with the old driver. For better Colour and all possible settings please install the optimal driver. See installation guide http://www2.iap.tuwien.ac.at/www/protected/iap/installprinter

2019-March-14

• At this year's 3S*19 workshop in Baqueira-Beret (Spain), the 3S-Poster Award, named after our recently deceased colleague Peter Varga, was awarded for the first time. The trophy went to Ales Cahlik from the Czech Academy of Sciences in Prague (1st person left) for his poster “Observation of electronic end-states in hydrogen-bonded organic 1D molecular chains on Au(111)”

2019-Feb-20

• In today's Austrian newspaper DerStandard Fritz Aumayr gives an interview on the prospects and difficulties of international fusion research, the Austrian participation in EUROfusion and in particular the contributions from TU Wien towards the realisation of fusion as a future energy source.

Read the full article (in German).

2019-Jan-31

• Our university's social highlight of the year is the ball in the formidable Wiener Hofburg, the emperor's palace. Many IAP member attend. Some of us gather at midnight, getting ready to dance the Fledermaus Quadrille.

2019-Jan-25

• Paul Szabo, member of the the Atomic and Plasma Physics Group of IAP, has received the Christiana HÖRBIGER Prize. The prize serves to promote the international mobility of young scientists. Congratulations!

2019-Jan-10

• Together with colleagues at the University of Vienna, Michele Reticcioli and Cesare Franchini, the Surface Physics group has found that polarons can localise on CO molecules adsorbed on TiO₂(110). The editors of Physical Review Letters have selected this work as 'editor's choice'.
  
  The article: Reticcioli et al., Phys. Rev. Lett. 122, 016805 (2019) ⋅ arXiv:1807.05859

2018-Oct-27

• With great sadness we announce that our colleague Peter Varga has passed on October 27, 2018. Peter Varga was deeply invested in TU Wien and the Institute of Applied Physics (IAP), and he was a major force in shaping our institute into one of the world's leading centers of surface physics.
  His funeral took place on November 5, 2018 in Maria Enzersdorf (Romantikerfriedhof, Grenzgasse 7).
  The Institute of Applied Physics mourns the loss of a long-time colleague and a good friend!

Peter Varga: Obituary, Nachruf, curriculum vitae, List of Publications.

2018-Oct-19

• Constant bombardement of the planet Mercury by solar wind ions leads to erosion of the planetary surface and the formation of a thin exosphere. The interaction processes can be simulated in laboratory experiments carried out in the Atomic and Plasma Physics Group at IAP. Such data are of interest for the ESA mission BepiColombo, Europe's first Mercury mission. A report on this research project was broadcasted today in the popular TV science show “nano” on 3SAT and is also available online here.

2018-Sep-21

• Once a year, the City of Vienna awards prizes to particularly outstanding diploma theses at the Vienna University of Technology (one per faculty). This year's award winner of the Faculty of Physics is Paul Szabo. His thesis Experimental and Simulated Sputtering of Gold, Iron and Wollastonite with a Catcher-QCM Setup was carried out at the IAP Atomic and Plasma Physics Group. Results of his Thesis have been published in several papers and were also featured in a Press release of TU Wien. Congratulations! The award ceremony will take place on Friday, 19 October 2018 at 13.00 c.t. in the Kuppelsaal of TU Wien.

2018-Sept-12

• At the Annual Meeting of the Austrian Physical Society (ÖPG), Sabrina Mayr was awarded the Students' Award for the best master thesis. Her thesis Studies of Few-Monolayer Zirconia Films and Metal Nucleation on Zirconia Surfaces was carried out in the IAP Surface Physics Group. Amongst many other achievements, Sabrina obtained the by far best STM images of zirconia surfaces in the world. One paper based on her work is already in press, further ones will follow. Congratulations Sabrina!

2018-Sept-8

• The Austrian Science Fund, FWF, celebrates its 50th anniversary with the BE OPEN Science & Society Festival. This 5-day event takes place at Maria Theresien Platz in Vienna. Frontier research in Austria is featured in 18 pavilions. We are responsible for pavilion 8 on materials research. We assemble an team consisting of many IAP members from the Surface Physics, Biophysics, Interface Physics, and Atomic & Plasma Physics groups, colleagues from Materials Chemistry, Synthetic Chemistry, and friends from the Nanophysics group in Graz. Together we share our enthusiasm for fundamental research on materials, and we try to entertain and educate the public as best we can.

2018-Aug-24

• Titanium dioxide (TiO₂) is highly versatile material, used, e.g., for self-cleaning mirrors. When bringing one of its surfaces in contact with water, researchers around the world have observed a structure that was interpreted as ordering of water molecules or caused by carbon dioxide dissolved in the water. Jan Balajka and colleagues of the IAP surface physics group, together with Melissa Hines (Cornell University) could disprove these ideas. They have used what is probably the purest water drop on Earth, created from an icicle in ultrahigh vacuum (see photo). Surprisingly, the TiO₂ surface structures turned out to come from trace impurities in the atmosphere such as formic acid, present in concentrations of only 1:1000000000! These results were published in the prestigeous journal Science.

The article in Science ⋅ Abstract with access to full text
Perspective Article by Jeong Young Park
TU Press release in English and German
Media coverage: Der Standard ⋅ ORF Science ⋅ Süddeutsche Zeitung ⋅ Die Welt ⋅ Die Zeit ⋅ Stern ⋅ New Scientist ⋅ phys.org ⋅ wissenschaft.de ⋅ chemie.de ⋅ Chemistry World, U.K. ⋅ ChemEurope ⋅ Live Science, U.S.A. ⋅ Index, Hungary ⋅ New Scientist, U.K. ⋅ Sciences Avenir, France⋅ BBC Mundo⋅ c&en News

2018-July-17

• T cells, a key component of our immune system, detect smallest amounts of bacterial or viral portions with their T cell receptor (TCR) and serve as an important proponent of the defence mechanism. One explanation, why T cells are super-sensitive is that the TCRs are concentrated at certain areas on the membrane of T cells. Our group, in collaboration with the Medical University of Vienna and the Max Planck Institute of Biophysical Chemistry in Göttingen, could show that TCRs are actually distributed randomly on the cellular membrane of resting T cells and not concentrated in nano-clusters as believed earlier. This study has now been published in Nature Immunology.

The paper can be found here: Nature Immunology (2018)

TU Wien News (in German).

2018-June-29

• For his contribution to “the understanding of highly charged ions and their interactions with solid surfaces” Richard Wilhelm from the Atomic and Plasma Physics Group has been honored with this year’s IBMM Prize. The International Advisory Committee of the International Conference on Ion Beam Modification of Material (IBMM) awards this prize biennially to an early career researcher (up to 7 years since PhD) who has made an outstanding contribution to the ion-beam-modification field.
  The competition for this year’s prize was particularly strong, so we are justly proud of Richard's achievements. As the winner of the IBMM Prize Richard not only received a cash award but also gave an invited talk at the IBMM conference this week in San Antonio Texas. Congratulations Richard!

TU Wien News (in German)

2018-June-27

• Today Markus Valtiner gave his long-awaited inaugural lecture at the TU Vienna. The audience (among them vice rector Fröhlich, the deans Burgdörfer and Danninger as well as colleagues of the faculties of physics and chemistry, representatives of industry, students, friends and family) got an entertaining insight into the world of corrosion and liquid-solid interfaces, supported by practical demonstrations.

2018-June-27

• Our paper about water adsorption on Fe3O4(001) has been published in PNAS. We are particularly proud of this work it was a very complex problem and it took the best of our capabilities in imaging, spectroscopy and theory to unravel. In the picture you see on of the structures formed in which water molecules adsorb on the surface Fe cations, with additional molecules bridging the gaps in a periodic fashion. Congratulations to all involved!

The paper can be found here: “Water agglomerates on Fe3O4(001)”PNAS (2018)
and the usual brilliant write up from Florian Aigner here: TU Wien News. It was picked up by news media der Standard, apa

2018-June-26

• The founder and first director (1966 - 1987) of the IAP Institute Prof. Franz Viehböck (already considerable 94 years old) participated today in the graduation ceremony of his granddaughter Carina, who successfully completed the Biomedical Engineering Master (and before that the Bachelor in Physics) at the TU Wien. The photo shows him together with his son Franz Viehböck (Austria's only “Austronaut” in space to date), his granddaughter Carina and the current director of the institute, Fritz Aumayr, who led the ceremony on behalf of our dean.

2018-June-25

• Janine Schwestka, member of the the Atomic and Plasma Physics Group of IAP, has received the Christiana HÖRBIGER Prize.
  The prize serves to promote the international mobility of young scientists.
  Congratulations!

2018-June-14

• At today's teaching award ceremony, the institute cleared all available prizes for the faculty of physics, leaving no chance for the other institutes.
  The prize for “Best Teacher 2018” of the faculty of physics went to Martin Müller, while the course “Grundlagen der Physik III” (Fundamentals of Physics III) taught by Fritz Aumayr and Martin Müller received the “Best Lecture Award 2018” of the Faculty of Physics, TU Wien. The prize honors excellence in teaching and consists of a trophy, a certificate and 5000 euros to be spent on new teaching equipment. This year the prizes were awarded for the second time. Last year the institute had already received the Best Lecture award for the course “Grundlagen der Physik I”.

Press release of TU Wien (in German), YouTube Video

2018-June-13

• Martin Setvin successfully defends his habilitation thesis. He soon will receive the 'venia legendi', the right to teach and to officially supervise students' bachelor, master, and PhD theses at TU Wien. Congratulations!

2018-Jun-12

• The solar wind, a steady stream of mainly protons and few multiply charged heavier ions from the sun, causes significant erosion upon impact on the surface of atmosphere-less planets like Mercury or on the moon. In a recent paper Paul Szabo and co-workers now show that previous models of this process are incomplete. The effects of solar wind bombardment are in some cases much more drastic than previously thought. The role of solar wind constituents heavier than protons and in particular the role of the particles charge state has so far been underestimated.

Link to original publication in Icarus, Press release of TU Wien (in German), Press release of TU Wien (in English), ORF.at, derStandard, futurezone.at

2018-May-2

• Since May 2, 2018 Mrs. Gunhild Yasin has joined our secretary team. Welcome to IAP!

2018-April-17

• As an indispensable part of our immune system, T cells protect us from the onslaught of bacteria and viruses and also from cancer. What happens on a molecular level when T cells detect suspicious activity in the body? In a recent paper, Mario Brameshuber and co-workers from the Biophysics group and from the Medical University of Vienna revealed that the immune receptors of T cells operate in unsuspected ways. While most opinion leaders in the field reasoned that T cell receptors must interact with one another for effective immune-signaling, the Viennese study shows: T cell receptors act alone. The study has now been published in the journal “Nature Immunology”.

The article in Nature Immunology; Read-only link of publication.

TU Press release in English and German
Media coverage: derStandard ⋅ APA

2018-April-11

• For the fourth time, women with vision and courage to take risks have been awared with the “look! Business Award”, women in management positions, founders and managers. Ille Gebeshuber was honored in the category “MINT Industries”. The laudation was held by Karin Zipperer from ASFINAG, the sponsor of this category. Congratulations Ille!

2018-April-04

• We got a new Poster Printer. Location is the same like the old one but you need a new driver (see installation guide).

The Canon imagePROGRAF iPF785 has the IP-Addresss 128.131.52.31

2018-March-20

• The Surface Physics Group has patented a device for suspending a load in a vibration-insulated manner, designed for high-resolution microscopy and nanotechnology. While other similar instruments are usually placed in the basement of a building in a quiet environment, the low-temperature non-contact AFM/STM at the IAP/TU Wien suspended according to the invention delivers excellent performance in spite of its place in the 5th floor of a building in downtown Vienna! The patented vibration isolation system also features accurate levelling even under changing load distribution during operation.

For more information, see the TU press release (English, German), the Youtube movie, article in Der Standard or the Feature in Nature on high-performance microscopy

2018-March-13

• Gareth Parkinson is awarded the Gaede Prize at the Spring Meeting of the German Physical Society in Berlin, Germany. This prize is given out annually to a young scientist who has made outstanding contributions to the field of vacuum science and technology.

Congratulations!

2018-Feb-02

• Ionic crystals - materials that are composed of positively and negatively charged ions - can be put into a highly unfavorable situation. When split in half along certain crystallographic directions the electrostatic energy diverges. To alleviate this so-called polar catastrophe, materials can react in a variety of ways. In a recent paper, Martin Setvin and co-workers from the Surface Physics group and from the University of Vienna show the surface of a KTaO₃(001) single crystal after cleaving, heating, and exposure to water vapor. Six different mechanisms to compensate polarity are encountered. One of the most pretty solutions, a nano-labyrinth with 4-5 atom-wide walls, is shown in the image on the right.

The article in Science ⋅ Abstract with access to full text
TU Press release in English and German
Media coverage: die Presse ⋅ APA ⋅ Welt der Physik

2018-Jan-23

• One week after recieving the Hannspeter Winter Award from TU Wien, Elisabeth Gruber was awarded the next prize: Elisabeth Gruber is one of two recipients of this year's Loschmidt Prize. This prize is awarded annually by the Austrian Chemical Physics Society CPG for an outstanding PhD thesis. Elisabeth Gruber received her doctorate in 2017 under the guidance of Prof. Friedrich Aumayr; her thesis is entitled “Interaction of Ions with 3D and 2D materials”. Dr. Gruber is currently a post-doc at Aarhus University. Congratulations!

2017-Dec-4

• During the opening ceremony of the ALC'17 conference in Kauai/Hawaii today Peter Varga received the Award of the 141st Committee on Microbeam Analysis of the Japanese Society for the Promotion of Sciences (JSPS) for (quote) ”… his distinguished contribution on the clarification of surface phenomena by atomic level investigation and the development of novel functional materials”! Congratulations, Peter!

2017-Nov-13 (2018-Jan-19)

• The Hannspeter Winter Award, named after our former institute director, was established at the TU Wien in 2007 and honours achievements in research in PhD projects by female graduate students. It also aims to increase awareness of notable achievements of women in the field of research and technology. The prize is awarded annually and this year our institute is proud to announce that it has been awarded to Dr. Elisabeth Gruber who recently finished her PhD thesis under the supervision of Fritz Aumayr. Congratulations Elisabeth! The award ceremony will take place on Jan. 19th, 2018 at 1 pm in the Kuppelsaal of TU Wien.

Press release of TU Wien (in German), Press release of TU Wien (in English)

2017-Nov-11

• For his outstanding habilitation thesis, Gareth Parkinson is awarded the 'Förderpreis' of the Kardinal Innitzer Studienstiftung. The award ceremony took place at the formidable Episcopal Palace, located in the center of Vienna. Gareth's family came all the way from England to celebrate.

2017-Nov-01

• Each year the AVS awards one outstanding young scientist the 'Peter Mark Memorial Award, named for the Editor of the Journal of Vacuum Science and Technology. This year our new professor, Markus Valtiner, has received this high recognition “For advancing understanding of physical and chemical mechanisms at molecular, nano- and microscales that impact adhesion and friction at electrified interfaces and for the development of novel stimuli-responsive materials”. Congratulations, Prof. Valtiner!

2017-Sep-25

• During the Austria'17 Gala yesterday Ille Gebeshuber was declared “Austrian of the Year 2017 in the Category Research”. Our congratulations to the proud winner!

2017-Oct-01

• With the arrival of Professor Markus Valtiner and the first members of his team today, a new research area is being established at IAP. Welcome to Vienna and welcome to the IAP!

A portrait of new professor (in German) can be found here

2017-Sep-08

• For more than 20 years atomic physicists have speculated about the mechanism, which allows “hollow atoms” to deexcited with a few femtoseconds. Experiments conducted by Atomic and Plasma Physics Group of Fritz Aumayr with highly charged ions and graphene now show that the reason is an effect so far not accounted for: the so-called “interatomic coulomb decay”. Their results have now been published in the journal “Physical Review Letters” and have been highlighted there as “editors' suggestion”.

Link to original publication in PRL
Press release of TU Wien in German, in English
media coverage: Der Standard, futurezone.at

2017-September-01

• We are extremely pleased to learn that Gareth Parkinson has been promoted to Associate Professor with tenure. He will continue his highly-successful research into the surface science of heterogeneous catalysis together with his growing surface physics subgroup focused on iron oxides.

2017-July-10

• Stijn Mertens successfully defends his habilitation thesis. This is the last step towards receiving the venia legendi, the right to teach and to officially supervise graduate students at TU Wien. Congratulations, Stijn!

2017-July-1 * Since July 1st, 2017 Dr. Mario Brameshuber supports the Biophysics Research Area as Senior Scientist.

2017-June-14

* The course “Grundlagen der Physik I” (Fundamentals of Physics I) taught by Fritz Aumayr, Martin Müller and Wolfgang Werner received the “Best Lecture Award 2017” of the Faculty of Physics in a ceremony held today at TU Wien. The prize consisting of a trophy, a certificate and 5000 Euros to be spent on new teaching equipment was awarded for the first time and and honors excellence in teaching.

Press release of TU Wien (in German),YouTube Video

2017-May-20

* After finishing his PhD in the Atomic and Plasma Physics Group Florian Laggner is now heading for Princeton (New Jersey - USA) to start his PostDoc in Fusion research on June 1, 2017 at the prestigeous Princeton University. But before he left, he gave an interview to the Austrian Newspaper Die Presse (in German).

2017-May-17

• Mrs. Katharin Pois now supports our administrative team as part-time employee. Welcome to IAP!

2017-May-16

• Roland Bliem graduates with a "promotio sub auspiciis praesidentis rei publicae"”. This honour is based on top academic performance and is awarded to only a handful of PhD students in the whole country. With a GPA of 1.0 (the best grade on Austria's 5-point scale) from high school all the way through his studies at the university, Roland is one of the selected few. A big day for Roland, the institute, and the surface physics group.

TU press release (in German) der standard Tiroler Tageszeitung

2017-March-14

• The oxygen molecule O₂ is chemically inert (except at high temperatures), but becomes reactive when an additional electron gets added. This process happens in biology, catalysis and can be also triggered by light on some surfaces. Martin Setvin of the Surface Physics Group managed to switch oxygen molecules adsorbed at a titanium dioxide surface back and forth between the non-reactive (neutral) and reactive (O₂^-) state and examine them in detail using non-contact atomic-force microscopy (nc-AFM) with the tiny tip of a so-called qPlus sensor (image). The results were published in the prestigious journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the USA (PNAS).

Publication in PNAS
TU Press Release in English and German
Media Coverage: APA · Der Standard · ORF · MyScience · Chemie.de

2017-March-8

* The Elise Richter Fellowship by the FWF provides research funds to support the academic career of highly qualified female scientists and scholars and to enhance their university career. Dr. Eva Sevcsik was officially awarded the fellowship by the president of the FWF, Klement Tockner, and the department head of the Ministry of Science, Research and Economy, Barbara Weitgruber, earlier this year. The project titled “Lipid Interactions of the T-Cell Receptor Complex” was started in April 2017 in the Biophysics group of Prof. Gerhard Schütz and in close collaboration with the Medical University of Vienna.

2017-Jan-19

• Neurotransmitter transporters are some of the most popular transport proteins in research as they play a major role in the processing of signals in the brain. A joint study by our biophysics group and the Medical University of Vienna has now successfully demonstrated for the first time the structural impact of membrane lipids on medically relevant serotonin transporters.

Link to original publication in Nature Communications, Press release of TU Wien (in German), Press release of TU Wien (in English), Press release of MedUni Wien (in German)

2016-Dec-21

• With her first-author paper published today in Nature Communications, Elisabeth Gruber, PhD student in the Atomic and Plasma Physics Group of Fritz Aumayr, made the TU headlines already for the second time in this year (see the news from 2016-Aug-29 below). In her work, she demonstrated that graphene, a two-dimensional form of carbon, is able to provide tens of electrons for charge neutralization of a slow highly charged ion within a few femtoseconds only. This in turn results in extremely high current densities, which the graphene can withstand without suffering permanent damage.

Link to original publication in Nature Communications, Press release of TU Wien (in German), Press release of TU Wien (in English), ORF.at, Der Standard, APA Press release of HZDR (in German)

2016-October-03

• Gareth Parkinson successfully defends his habilitation and our institute gains a newly-minted 'Dozent'. Congratulations!

2016-September-24

• Since 2005, the achievements and expertise of successful women working in research and technology are highlighted on a monthly basis in the media by the FEMtech initiative (BMVIT ministry). This month Dipl.-Ing. Dr.techn. Katharina Dobes, former member of the Atomic and Plasma Physics Group of Fritz Aumayr and now working at RUAG Space GmbH, has been selected as FEMtech Female Expert of the Month September 2016. After Ille Gebeshuber (FEMtech Female Expert in March 2008) she is the second IAP co-worker having received this prestigious acknowledgement. Press coverage der Standard (24.09.2016), FFG, FEMtech,YouTube Video.

2016-August-29

• A meteorite impacting the earth under a grazing angle of incidence can

do a lot of damage; it may travel a long way, carving a trench into the ground until it finally penetrates the surface. The impact site may be vaporized, there can be large areas of molten ground. All that remains is a crater, some debris, and an extensive trail of devastation on both sides of the impact site.

Hitting a surface with high-energy, heavy ions has quite similar effects – only on a much smaller scale. In a recent publication researchers from the IAP Atomic and Plasma Physics Group have investigated the microscopic structures which are formed when ions are fired at crystals at oblique angles of incidence and could shed light on the underlying formation mechanism.

Link to original publication. Press release of the TU Wien (in German), Press release of the TU Wien (in English), ORF, APA article Der Standard

2016-Aug-16

• We welcome Mr. Heinrich Zlabinger, who started working in our electronics workshop today.

2016-July-28

• Sintering - the aggregation of catalytically active, metallic nanoparticles into bigger clumps - is one of the major causes of catalyst de-activation. This is particularly important in the emerging field of single-atom catalysis, the main research topic of the START project of Gareth Parkinson. A detailed STM and DFT study, mainly conducted by Roland Bliem, and published in PNAS, shows how single Pt atoms on the Fe₃O₄(001) surface are made mobile by CO, and how they merge into bigger clusters. Interestingly, the smallest cluster, a Pt dimer, is stabilized by the CO molecules. When the sample is heated, and the CO desorbs, and the two Pt atoms separate again.

Original Publication
TU press release APA (subscribers only) der Standard Tiroler Tageszeitung

2016-July-1

• Mrs. Dana Harantova has joined our administrative team today. Welcome to IAP!

2016-June-30

• The article "Switching stiction and adhesion of a liquid on a solid" by Stijn Mertens et al. is featured on this week's cover of Nature Magazine. The work describes dynamic contact angle measurements of a single drop of 0.1 M HClO₄ on a single layer of BN supported on Rh(111). Friction can be changed reversibly by applying an appropriate electrochemical potential that leads to the intercalation of H between BN and the Rh.

2016-June-17

• Roland Bliem, a PhD student in our Institute, has received the Christian-Doppler-Preis 2015 in the category Physics for his work on metal adsorption on the magnetite (001) surface. The Christian-Doppler-Preis is the science award of Roland's home province Salzburg, awarded biennially to researchers under 40 years of age. It is named after the famous physicist Christian Doppler who was born in Salzburg in 1803.

Salzburger Nachrichten
Aktuelles TU Wien

2016-April-1

• After more than 7 years of leave from TU Wien Prof. Ille C. Gebeshuber returns from Kuala Lumpur, where she worked at the National University of Malaysia (Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia). Welcome back Ille!

2016-March-1

• Honoring his commitment and exemplary leadership in establishing the super computers “Vienna Scientific Cluster” (VSC1, VSC2, and VSC3), our rector awards Prof. Herbert Störi an honorary citizenship of TU Wien (Ehrenbürgerschaft der TU Wien). Congratulations Herbert!

TU Webnews (in German)

2016-January-19

• Dr. Zbynek Novotny is one of two recipients of this year's Loschmidt Prize. This prize is awarded annually by the Austrian Chemical Physics Society for an outstanding PhD thesis. Zbynek received his doctorate in 2013 under the guidance of Prof. Ulrike Diebold; his thesis is entitled “The Fe₃O₄ Surface as an Adsorption Template”. He is currently a post-doc the Pacific Northwest National Lab in Washington State, U.S. Congratulations!

TU Webnews (in German)

Archive of Previous IAP News (2006-2015)