page_title: Konstantinos Fostiropoulos
section_title: Education
hierarchical_section_title: Konstantinos Fostiropoulos / Education
caption_attribution_description: Alte Feuerwache in Mannheim, Germany
context_page_description: Konstantinos Fostiropoulos is a Greek physicist who has been working in Germany in the areas nano-materials, solid-state physics, molecular physics, astrophysics, and thermodynamics. From 2003 to 2016 he has been founder and head of the Organic Solar Cells Group at the Institute Heterogeneous Materials Systems within the Helmholtz-Zentrum Berlin. His scientific works include novel energy materials and photovoltaic device concepts, carbon clusters in the Interstellar Medium, and intermolecular forces of real gases.
  In 1989 Fostiropoulos was the first to synthesize C₆₀,
  a molecular carbon modification, in preparative amounts by a specifically developed vacuum process. After the discovery of the molecule 1985 by Kroto et al., Fostiropoulos' work contributed essentially to the establishment of fundamental fullerene research as well as its applications.
  In 2001/2002 he presented a bilayer heterojunction concept for organic photovoltaic devices applying vacuum processes for the formation of a molecular absorber layer consisting of Zn-phthalocyanine and C₆₀ molecules achieving a then world record power conversion efficiency of 2.5% for such devices.
context_section_description: In his early years in Mannheim Fostiropoulos graduated from German basic primary Hilda-Schule and secondary Kurpfalzgymnasium Mannheim as well as from Greek afternoon primary school. Moreover, he graduated from the Städtische Musikschule Mannheim where he had attended as a guitarist the pick instruments class of Takashi Ochi.
  Fostiropoulos studied physics at the nearby Heidelberg University where he was, particularly, intrigued by the Grand Unified Theory, laser physics and molecular physics. He obtained his Diploma after having joined the research group of Bernhard Schramm, Institute of Physical Chemistry.
  In February 1989 he attended the "Dust Group" of Hugo Fechtig, Department Cosmophysics at Max Planck Institute for Nuclear Physics, where he worked as doctoral candidate on his thesis "C₆₀ - eine neue Form des Kohlenstoffs". In February 1992 he received his Ph.D. from Heidelberg University.
  Because of his family's financial constraints he had been working in varies jobs during his studies: as classical guitar instructor at Mannheimer Abendakademie, sound engineer for simultaneous translation at Ellerbrock Konferenztechnik, taxi driver in Mannheim, and teaching assistant of Physical Chemistry at Heidelberg University.
caption: "Alte Feuerwache" - 
  Landmark of Mannheim-Neckarstadt
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