Recent Graduates

Congratulations to Jakob Schadow, who successfully completed his Bachelor’s degree in Microsystems Technology at HTW Berlin – University of Applied Sciences on 12 December 2025. From April to October 2025, Jakob carried out his Bachelor’s thesis research at the Paul Drude Institute (PDI), working under the supervision of Nicole Volkmer in the Technology and Transfer Department.

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.

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 Serkan Sirt, who successfully defended his dissertation, “Signatures of Coulomb Screening in the Quantum Hall Effect" on September 11th, 2025, at Freie Universität Berlin. Serkan's PhD was supervised at PDI by Stefan Ludwig.

We're delighted to announce that Master’s student Adriano Notarangelo successfully completed his degree in Solid State Physics and Quantum Technologies, graduating with top honors (110/110 cum laude). Adriano conducted his thesis research at PDI from July 2024 to March 2025, working under the supervision of PDI scientist Philipp John and long-time PDI collaborator Stefano Carlo Cecchi.

We’re pleased to announce that Francisca Marín Largo successfully completed her PhD in February 2025, defending her dissertation “Charge Carrier Dynamics Under the Influence of Extreme Strain Gradients Realized in Bent Semiconductor Nanowires.”

PDI PhD student Mikel Gómez Ruiz successfully defended his thesis on March 27, 2025 at Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin. His dissertation, titled "Carrier recombination in group-III-V nanowires – Investigation of defects and transport via cathodoluminescence spectroscopy," was supervised by PDI Senior Scientist Dr. Jonas Lähnemann.

We are delighted to announce that PDI PhD student Miriam Oliva successfully defended her PhD thesis on December 11, 2024, at Technische Universität Berlin, earning the distinction of magna cum laude.