Oldenburg. Prof. Dr Niklas Nilius, previously head of the "Scanning Tunnelling Microscopy and Spectroscopy" working group in the Department of Chemical Physics at the Fritz Haber Institute in Berlin, is the new Professor of Experimental Physics at the Institute of Physics at the University of Oldenburg.
Nilius studied physics at the universities of Jena and Halle (Saale) and completed his doctorate in 2001 at the Humboldt University of Berlin on the subject of "Optical properties of individual metal particles". He was awarded the Otto Hahn Medal of the Max Planck Society for his work.

Research stays took Nilius to the University of California, Irvine (USA), where he researched electronic quantisation effects on metallic nanoparticles. In addition to his scientific work, Nilius has also been coordinator of the International Max Planck Research School for Complex Surfaces in Materials Science in Berlin since 2010. The experimental physicist's research focus includes the investigation of oxide materials with applications in heterogeneous catalysis.

[University press release from 20/12/2012]