News: Professor Franz J. Gie?ibl has been admitted to the European Academy of Sciences and Arts

Professor Gie?ibl, who holds the Chair of Experimental and Applied Physics at the University of Regensburg, has been elected a member of the European Academy of Sciences and Arts (EASA). This award honours his outstanding scientific achievements in the fields of atomic force microscopy and quantum physics at interfaces.

The European Academy of Sciences, Humanities and the Arts is an independent, non-governmental organisation based in Salzburg. It brings together around 2,000 exceptional scientists, artists, and prominent public figures from over 70 countries. The Academy's mission is to promote interdisciplinary and transnational scientific collaboration, and to drive social and technological progress.

"I am delighted to have been elected to this traditional European academy," emphasises Prof. Gie?ibl. "It stands for open, interdisciplinary dialogue — a principle that also underpins my research. I see the appointment as an incentive to further advance basic research at the interface of physics, chemistry and technology.”

Professor Udo Hebel, President of the University of Regensburg, congratulated the scientist on this special honour: 'Professor Gie?ibl's election to the European Academy of Sciences and Arts highlights the strength of his scientific research and the international visibility that distinguishes our university in the natural sciences, especially physics. Professor Gie?ibl has shaped an entire field of research with his pioneering work on ultrahigh spatial resolution in atomic force microscopy.'

Professor Gie?ibl is one of the world's leading experts in atomic force microscopy. In the 1990s, he developed frequency modulation atomic force microscopy (FM-AFM) into a technique capable of atomically and subatomically precise imaging of surfaces, marking a milestone in nanoscience. In 1995, he moved to Munich to work as a management consultant, primarily carrying out benchmarking analyses for DAX companies. Simultaneously, he established his own laboratory in his home, where he developed the qPlus sensor — a novel sensor architecture for atomic force microscopes — which was subsequently patented. This sensor is a self-scanning measuring needle — sensing cantilever based on quartz — which can oscillate with tiny amplitudes in the range of an atomic radius in the vicinity of reactive surfaces, offering an enormously high spatial resolution. The tip of this special measuring needle is attached to a quartz bar that oscillates at a specific frequency, similar to the quartz crystal found in highly accurate watches. The qPlus sensor is now an indispensable component of the atomic force microscope, with new applications being discovered year after year in this department and many others, both nationally and internationally. In 1997, he returned to academic research, working in Professor Jochen Mannhart's team at the University of Augsburg. There, he and his team achieved a breakthrough in atomic force microscopy by resolving electron clouds of individual atoms for the first time. Following his habilitation, he was offered professorships at the universities of Bristol and Regensburg. He has received numerous prestigious awards for his work, including the Rudolf Kaiser Prize, the Karl Heinz Beckurts Prize, the Feynman Prize in Nanotechnology, and the Heinrich Rohrer Grand Medal. In 2023, he was named a Fellow of the American Physical Society, and in 2024, he was named an International Fellow of the Japan Society for Vacuum and Surface Science.

Prof Franz Gie?ibl at the UR (external link, opens in a new window)

You can find a video about Franz J. Gie?ibl in the media centre of the University of Regensburg
https://mediathek2.uni-regensburg.de/playthis/648730a2d4f163.21781006 (external link, opens in a new window)

European Academy of Sciences and Arts (external link, opens in a new window)