He is best known for his work on metal plasmas and thin film deposition by cathodic arcs and high power impulse magnetron sputtering.

He continued his studies at Humboldt-University Berlin, East Germany, in the field of pulsed barrier discharges to obtain his “Diplom-Physiker” degree (1984).

[1] After the return to the Academy, he worked on improving the lifetime of electrodes in high pressure sodium arc lamps[2] and developed a laser-based technique to study cathode spots with nanosecond resolution.

His work on ultrathin diamond-like carbon films in the development of hard disk drives with storage exceeding 1 GB/in2 was recognized with an R&D100 Award in 2009.

For more than a decade, he studied the plasma of HiPIMS (high power magnetron sputtering), especially the role of ionization zones[8] (“spokes”), self-sputtering[9] and gas recycling.