December 14, 2011 — Hans Christen of the Department of Energy's Oak Ridge National Laboratory has been elected a fellow of the American Physical Society.
Christen, a distinguished research staff member and group leader of the Thin Films and Nanostructures group in the Materials Science and Technology Division, was cited "for pioneering studies of effects of strain, confinement, and interfaces on the properties of complex oxide films enabled by novel pulsed-laser deposition and characterization methods."
In his role as ORNL manager for DOE's Materials Sciences and Engineering Program, he oversees and coordinates a broad research portfolio of basic energy research with emphasis on materials for extreme environments, materials by design, and energy storage and conversion.
Christen's research focuses on the effects of strain, interfaces, and spatial confinement on the properties of complex oxide materials, including ferroelectrics, magnetoresistive oxides, multiferroics, and novel materials for energy conversion, such as photovoltaics, thermoelectrics, piezoelectrics.
Christen, who has authored more than 130 journal articles and conference proceedings and written several book chapters, received his doctorate in physics from the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Switzerland in collaboration with IBM Zurich Research Laboratory. He also holds seven patents.
Christen will be formally honored at the APS annual meeting in March 2012.
ORNL is managed by UT-Battelle for the Department of Energy's Office of Science.