Harald Ibach

Harald P. W. Ibach is a German solid state physicist.

Education and career

Ibach received his doctorate in 1969 from RWTH Aachen University with his dissertation Thermische Ausdehnung von Silizium und Zinkoxid and habilitated there in 1972 with his habilitation thesis: Low energy electron spectroscopy — a tool for studies of surface vibrations. From 1975 he was a docent and then a professor ordinarius at RWTH Aachen University, as well as director of the Institut für Schichten und Grenzflächen, and chair for Experimental Physics IV A in Jülich. Since 2017 he is a visiting scientist at the Peter Grünberg Institut of the Forschungszentrum Jülich.
He is concerned with surface physics of solids and spectroscopic methods for this, electron energy loss spectroscopy, thin layers, adsorption and reaction of gases on surfaces, vibration spectroscopy on surfaces.
He is the co-author, with, of a German standard textbook on solid state physics. He also wrote, with Douglas L. Mills, a standard reference on electron energy loss spectroscopy.
In 1992 Ibach received the Europhysics Prize and in 1986 the Medard W. Welch Award.

as editor: Electron Spectroscopy for Surface Analysis, Springer 1977Zur Physik und Chemie der Festkörperoberfläche, Rheinisch-Westfälische Akademie der Wissenschaften, Vorträge Nr. 309, Opladen: Westdeutscher Verlag 1982
with Douglas L. Mills: Electron Energy Loss Spectroscopy and Surface Vibrations, Academic Press 1982
with Hans Lüth: Festkörperphysik. Einführung in die Grundlagen, Springer, 1981, 7th edition 2009
*, English translation, Springer 1996, 4th edition 2009Electron Energy Loss Spectrometers, Springer 1991Physics of Surfaces and Interfaces, Springer 2006