Franz Faupel was born in Fritzlar, Germany, in 1957. He received his diploma and Ph.D. in physics from the University of Göttingen in 1982 and 1985, respectively, working on diffusion and defects in metals and alloys. Subsequently he investigated related subjects until in 1987 he joined the IBM Th. J. Watson Research Center in Yorktown Heights, New York, as a postdoctoral fellow studying mechanical properties of metal-polymer structures, as well as diffusion and solid-state reactions in thin films. In 1988 he returned to the University of Göttingen, where his research focused on diffusion in amorphous media, formation of metal-polymer interfaces, and thermodynamics, particularly of high-temperature superconductors.
Since 1994 Faupel has been a full professor and holds the Chair for Multicomponent Materials within the Faculty of Materials Science and Engineering at the University of Kiel, where he is also faculty member in the Physics Department. At Kiel he is continuing his research on metal-polymer interfaces, mainly related to their structure and formation, interfacial chemistry, and adhesion. His additional interests include the preparation of organic thin films and of novel metal-polymer nanocomposites for functional applications by gas phase deposition as well as the investigation of defects and diffusion in crystalline and amorphous metallic alloys, supercooled liquids, and polymers. He published more then 270 research papers and has carried out many joined research projects with groups from all over the world and with companies.
Since 2005 Faupel is coordinator of the North German Initiative on
Nanomaterials (NINa). From 2000 to 2005 he was chair of the Metal
Physic’s division
of the German Physical Society
(DPG)
and before that he was chair of their joint Working Group
on Metal Physics (AG Metallphysik) with the German Materials Research
Society (DGM) and the German Society
for
Metallurgy (VdEH). He is also member of the advisory board of the German Materials Research
Society (DGM). Faupel is Editor of the encyclopedia RÖMPP Online and Principal Editor of the Journal of Materials
Research. Previously, he was Associate Editor in Europe of the journal. He served on the
editorial boards of Applied
Physics Letters, the Journal
of Applied Physics, and Journal of
Adhesion Science and Technology and
is member of the editorial advisory board of Defect and
Diffusion Forum. His activities
also include work on other national and international advisory and
evaluation
boards including the Minerva-Weizmann Committee of the Max Planck Society. From 2008 to 2010 he was Dean of the Faculty of Materials Science and
Engineering, and he served four years as Vice Dean.