Specrrochrmrca Ada, Vol Pnnted m Great Bntam

4lB. No 12. p 1223. 1986 05%8547/86 $3 00 + 0 00 Pergamon Journals Ltd

Profile of H. Oechsner Editor of Spectrochimica Acta, Part B, for surface and interface analysis

PROFESSOR HANS OECHSNER, born 1934, graduated in 1960 from the University of W&burg with a diploma thesis on the generation and the diagnostics of resonant low pressure high frequency discharges. He was awarded his Dr. rer. nat. at the same university in 1963. In his doctorate thesis he was one of the early investigators of surface sputtering by low energy ion bombardment, and started with it a series of investigations on particle-surface interaction, i.e. in a field which is nowadays the basis of recent methods for

surface and depth profile analysis. After a research period at the Eidenossische Technische Hochschule in Zurich in 1968 where he continued

experimental and theoretical work on electrodynamic resonance effects in low pressure plasmas, he performed his residency also at the University of Wiirzburg and became a Privatdozent for experimental physics in 1972. In the same year he was appointed to a professorship in physics at the Technical University of Clausthal. Here he directed his scientific work more and more towards the development and the applications of mass spectrometric and electron spectroscopy techniques for the analysis of solid surfaces and thin films. Based on his research on the formation and the properties of neutral particles ejected from an ion bombarded surface he developed in particular the method of Secondary (or Sputtered) Neutral Mass Spectrometry SNMS, and introduced this technique as a novel and very effective tool for quantitative surface analysis and for the determination of concentration depth profiles with extremely high depth resolution.

In 1981 he accepted the chair of technical physics at the University of Kaiserslautern, where he expanded the analytical facilities of his laboratory. He is presently very active in fundamental and applied research on particle-solid interaction as applied for surface analysis, on solid state reactions at surfaces and in thin films, and on the preparation, modification and characterization of solid surfaces for technological applications.

Prof. OECHSNER authored and co-authored numerous papers and book chapters in his field and edited a book on Thin Film and Depth Profile Analysis. In 1985 he acted as chairman of the 5th International Conference

on Ion and Plasma Assisted Techniques in Munich and as editor of the proceedings of this conference. Quite recently he organized the 4th Working Conference on Applied Surface Analysis at the University of Kaiserslautern. From 1975 to 1982 he chaired the Thin Film Division of the German Vacuum Society.

1223