Paul-Drude-Institut für Festkörperelektronik

PDI's Van Dong Pham has been selected for the 2025 Rising Stars Collection of Applied Physics Letters (APL). His paper, “Scanning tunneling microscopy of ultrathin indium intercalated between graphene and SiC using confinement heteroepitaxy,” was chosen as one of just 30 papers highlighted in this year’s edition.

Congratulations to Andrea Ardenghi, who successfully defended his dissertation, “Doping, Phase Control, and Point Defects in Ga₂O₃ Thin Films Grown by Plasma-Assisted Molecular Beam Epitaxy" on October 8th, 2025, at Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin and PDI, under the supervision of Oliver Bierwagen and Piero Mazzolini.

Congratulations to Ekaterina Paysen, who successfully defended her doctoral thesis, “Electron Tomography for Investigating Morphology and Chemical Width of Epitaxial Heterointerfaces,” on October 28th, 2025. Ekaterina completed her PhD jointly at PDI and Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, conducting her research under the supervision of Achim Trampert at PDI.

Researchers from the Core Research Area (CReA) Novel Functional Oxide Materials at PDI, together with international collaborators, have uncovered new insights into how charge carriers move and interact in gallium oxide (Ga₂O₃), a key material for the next generation of high-power electronics and ultraviolet optoelectronics. The findings represent a significant step forward in understanding charge-carrier dynamics in ultrawide bandgap oxides.