Curriculum Vitae

I received my scientific education at Karl-Franzens-Universität in Graz, Austria with Experimentalphysik as major. I startet my industrial carreer 1965 at SIEMENS in Heidenheim and München, Germany, in the field of Al and Ta electrolytic capacitors. 1971 I became head of a research group responsible for the development of temperature compensated R and C networks integrated on glazed ceramic substrates.The task was mastered by introducing non-reactively sputter deposited Ta60Al40 resistors exhibiting a TCR of -110 ppm/°C and multilayered thin film capacitors formed by anodic oxidation of magnetron deposited capacitor base layer of Ta7Al93. Temperature compensation with a TCC of +110 ppm/°C was achieved by sandwiching the anodic oxide with a magnetron deposited SiO2 film accordingly.

Based on my early magnetron expierence I changed 1978 to Leybold-Heraeus (later Leybold AG) in Hanau, Germany. There I estabished the magnetron development group. 1983 I was promoted to become Vice President of the PVD process development devision. It was the most fascinating time of my life. I participated in the stormy development e.g. of display technology, architectural glass coating, sputter roll coating and finally PVD hard coatings. The latter subject became my main and final field of endeavour. Into this period of time fell the development of DLC (since 1983) and TiAlN (1985) and a variaty of another hard wear resistant as well as decorative coatings. Large scale productivity was achieved by implementing these innovative PVD processes particularly into in-line coating equipment. Close cooperations were developed with RWTH Aachen (TiAl), The Academy of Science, Prague, CR,  Linköping University, Sweden, the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champain, USA and the former Philips Forschungslabors, Hamburg (DLC), Germany.

After a short intermezzo at BIRL Northwestern University, Evanston, USA, I joined as General Manager HTC Hauzer Techno Coating, Venlo, The Netherlands in 1990. There started the new design line of multi-cathode vacuum chambers with octogonal cross section (1990). Also the exploitation of the unbalanced magnetron with electromagnets in closed field arrangement was emphasized.. Based on the close cooperation with the BOSCH Comp.,Germany, HAUZER became the leading company in manufacturing coating equipment for DLC as used in the automotive industry. In 1992 I supported the foundation of HVM Ltd., Prague, CR, a new company producing vacuum components and being active in DLC job-coating. The narrow cooperation with the universities named above was continued.

In 1993 I received a call from Sheffield Hallam University, Sheffield, UK, to establish a Chair for Surface Engineering. In this function I had the opportunity to carry out fundamental science accompanied with industrial application of PVD hard coatings in the local UK as well as in European industry using large scale PVD equipment at the university. Together with the Unversities of Illinois, Urbana-Champain and Linköping we received deep insights into the adhesion problem, the architecture of the interface substrat/coating (ABSTM-Technology), or the structure of innovative coatings, such as superlattice nanostructures. Between 2001 to 2003 I was director of BODYCOTE SHU Coatings Ltd., a joint venture founded to examine and complete academic research results in industrial reality. Within an extensive European CRAFT project we worked already in 1999 on the HIPIMS technology. 2001 I received the technology prize of  IUVSTA.

Between 2005 and 2008 I was Technical Director at SVS Vacuum Coating Technologies, Karlstadt, Germany. There we succeeded as first industrial company to include routinely HIPIMS into PVD production  processes e.g. to control adhesion and deposition of hard carbon coatings. Furthermore the role of differently located anodes was succcessfully investigated with respect to uniform plasma distribution in multicathode vacuum chambers. In the field of C-DLC close cooperation  with Fraunhofer IST, Braunschweig, Germany, was emphazised gratefully. The microstructure of HIPIMS deposited nitrides was investigated in cooperation with Montan University Leoben, Austria.  2007 I received the R. F. Bunshah Award for Surface Engineering of the AVS.
Since 2014 there exists a cooperation with Arthur Klink Company, Pforzheim, DE, to sputtercoat universally sized broaches.