Matthias Scheffler

Matthias Scheffler (born June 25, 1951 in Berlin ) is a German theoretical solid-state physicist who deals with surface physics.

Scheffler studied physics at the TU Berlin , where he received his doctorate in 1978 and completed his habilitation in theoretical physics in 1984. After completing his doctorate, he worked as a research assistant at the Physikalisch-Technische Bundesanstalt in Braunschweig. Since 1988 he has been a member and director of the theoretical department at the Fritz Haber Institute of the Max Planck Society in Berlin. From 1989 he was honorary professor at the TU Berlin and from 2001 at the FU Berlin . Since 2004 he has also been a Distinguished Visiting Professor in the Computational Material Science and Engineering department at the University of California, Santa Barbara .

Scheffler theoretically investigated chemical reactions such as oxidation catalysis on surfaces, such as those that take place in car catalytic converters, with the help of supercomputers ( ab initio calculations, including with density functional theory ). He is also concerned with the structure of biomolecules (such as the stability of the alpha helix ) and the growth of nanostructures, for example on semiconductor surfaces (with applications in chip production) and in quantum dots , in which he worked together with Peter Kratzer .

In 2001 he received the Max Planck Research Award and in 2003 the Medard W. Welch Award . In 2004 he received the Max Born Prize for outstanding contributions to theoretical surface physics and in 2010 the Rudolf Jaeckel Prize.

In 1998 he became a Fellow of the American Physical Society . He is a member of the Berlin-Brandenburg Academy of Sciences . In 2017 he was elected a member of the Leopoldina .

literature

• Roland Wengenmayr A construction set with just atomic nuclei and electrons , Max Planck Research, 2/2002

Web links

• Literature by and about Matthias Scheffler in the catalog of the German National Library
• Homepage at the Fritz Haber Institute

Individual evidence

1. ^ Page at the Berlin-Brandenburg Academy of Sciences , biography at the Max Planck Society
2. ↑ Laudation for the Max Born Prize
3. ↑ Archived copy ( memento of the original dated July 31, 2016 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. 
4. ↑ Member entry by Prof. Dr. Matthias Scheffler at the German Academy of Sciences Leopoldina , accessed on May 16, 2017.