Dr. Stefan Hieke honoured with stipend of the European Microscopy Society

Stefan Hieke, postdoctoral researcher in the group Nanoanalytics and Interfaces, received one of 24 stipends to the amount of 900€ of the European Microscopy Society to attend the 19^th International Microscopy Congress (IMC19) in Sydney, Australia. The support enabled the presentation of his latest scientific results about the solid state dewetting behaviour of aluminium thin films at the largest microscopy congress with 2000 participating scientists which takes places only each 4 years. The study has been carried out with collaboration of scientists from the Fritz Haber Institute of the Max Planck Society, Berlin, the French National Centre for Scientific Research, Marseille and the Max Planck Institute for Intelligent Systems, Stuttgart. The rupture of a 50nm thin, Al film below a 4nm thin covering oxide layer below the melting point of aluminium has been observed for the first time within a dedicated ESEM in situ. The study reveals the dynamics of the involved processes and gives insights on the stability of thin film systems applied in various fields like microelectronics or optics.

Dr. Stefan Hieke had in addition the honour to be one of the selected 50 participants of the Young Scientist Assembly of the International Federation of Societies for Microscopy. He had the opportunity to meet, discuss and network with discipline leaders, Nobel laureates (Prof. Joachim Frank and Prof. Dan Shechtman) and fellow future emerging leaders of different fields of microscopy within a two-day long program being held before the congress.