Prof. em. Dr. Johannes Friso van der Veen

Friso van der Veen has been Full Professor of Experimental Physics at the ETH Zurich since May 2000. He is head of the Research Department of Synchrotron Radiation and Nanotechnology at the Paul Scherrer Institut in Villigen.

Friso van der Veen was born on May 20, 1949 in The Netherlands. He studied physics

at the University of Utrecht and earned in 1978 his doctorate with a thesis on a surface science topic. After spending in 1979 a year as postdoc with Dr. D.E. Eastman at IBM Yorktown Heights in the USA, he joined the staff at the FOM-Institute for Atomic and Molecular Physics in Amsterdam. In 1987 he became head of the surface physics department at this institute and in 1997 he was appointed professor of experimental physics at the Van der Waals-Zeeman Institute of the University of Amsterdam.

His current research interests lie in the application of synchrotron x-ray scattering techniques for studies of the structural properties of solid-liquid interfaces and of confined fluid films. Studies of this kind help us to understand the atomic-scale processes underlying melting, freezing, crystal growth and boundary lubrication. Earlier work of Friso van der Veen included the use of medium-energy ion scattering and of synchrotron radiation-based XUV electron spectroscopy and X-ray diffraction for studies of the geometric and electronic structure of single-crystal surfaces.

In 1998 Prof. van der Veen has been awarded the IUVSTA Prize by the International Union for Vacuum Science, Techniques and Applications for the above-mentioned research, in particular for his studies of surface melting. He is a corresponding member of the Royal Academy of Sciences of The Netherlands.