About the Summer School

The 2025 Summer School of the International Center for Advanced Studies of Energy Conversion (ICASEC) on October, 12-16 covers the topic “State of the Art Methods in Surface Dynamics”. The Summer School will take place at the “Tagungszentrums an der Sternwarte” in the center of Göttingen, Germany.

The mission of ICASEC is to bring together a broad range of scientists and address fundamental problems of energy conversion in research and teaching. For this purpose, our annual Summer School provides a discussion platform for international postdocs and students with 8 leading experts. This year state-of-the art methods for surface dynamics are in the focus of the Summer School. Dynamics at surfaces is the field where atomic-scale understanding emerges concerning the elementary events important to interfacial energy transfer and surface chemistry. Experiments are performed on well-defined model systems under ultra-high vacuum conditions to allow a straightforward comparison to theory. This approach unravels the mechanisms of elementary surface processes and reactions down to the atomic and quantum scale revealing ways to control surface reactions and improve heterogeneous catalysts in the future.

Today, new materials with unique properties that can be tailored by structure, composition, temperature, and external fields can be synthesized using a variety of methods. Such materials have the potential to influence energy transfer processes at their surfaces. They provide very interesting model systems for fundamental research and have prospects for future applications. For a detailed understanding of their properties, a combination of different methods is crucial, of which key methods will be covered by the speakers of the Summer School.

Invited speakers will each give two 45 min presentations. A tutorial lecture on the fundamental principles and methods of their work is followed by a seminar that covers their current research and the state of the art. Participation in the Summer School is free of charge for students and post-docs. Participants are expected to cover their accommodation and travel costs.