Giessen physicist Prof. Dr. Sangarn Chatterjee has been awarded a LOEWE Transfer Professorship (State Offensive for the Development of Scientific and Economic Excellence) for High Technology Materials (HIMAT) at the Center for Materials Research (ZfM) and the Department of Mathematics, Computer Science, Physics and Geography at Justus Liebig University Giessen (JLU).
The professorship is intended to strengthen the application orientation in materials science and promote close cooperation with industry, particularly in the field of modern coating technologies. It is funded by the state of Hesse for five years with one million euros from the LOEWE program and JLU's own contribution of around 250,000 euros. Modern coating technologies for the uniform and homogeneous coating of complex surfaces - in particular atomic layer deposition - are the focus of HIMAT research.
The professorship is intended to strengthen the application orientation in materials science
Atomic layer deposition is used for powder media in battery technology, in mechanical engineering and in the semiconductor industry for the production of 3D structures and for microelectronics. This technique enables the deposition of a wide range of materials such as metals, oxides and nitrides. This allows layers with different electrical, optical and mechanical properties to be produced, which are important for energy storage, for example. Among other things, optical coatings increase the efficiency of solar cells by minimizing the reflection of light and maximizing the absorption of solar energy. "The LOEWE transfer professorship fits perfectly into our cutting-edge research area of materials and energy," says incoming JLU President Prof. Dr. Katharina Lorenz. "The researchers here combine basic research and application orientation in a special way and thus have the potential to make a substantial contribution to solving the pressing challenges of the energy transition. I warmly congratulate Prof. Chatterjee on this success."
