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,Robert F. Curl and Richard E. Smalley, "Fullerenes", Scientific American, October 1991"Dusty Objects in the Universe, September 1989, Capri, Italy", conference proceedings, page 89-93, "Search for the UV and IR spectra of C60 in laboratory-produced carbon dust" a molecular carbon modification, in preparative amountsJournal of BGRCI, page 14:"Fostiropoulos... konnte schließlich erstmals einige Gramm reines Fulleren herstellen." by a specifically developed vacuum process. After the discovery of the molecule 1985 by Kroto et al.,C60: Buckminsterfullerene Fostiropoulos' work contributed essentially to the establishment of fundamental fullerene research as well as its applications.Harry Kroto, 1996, in "Sir Harold Kroto – Biographical" 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.Fostiropoulos et al., 2002 SPIE conference proceedings, "Preparation and investigation of phthalocyanine/C60 solar cells"
He has also been an expert in distance education who demonstrated in 1999 an experimental low band width connectivity transatlantic internet teaching platform.GMD's experimental low band width connectivity internet teaching platform for transatlantic courses On the occasion of the corona crisis, he set up a platform capable of hosting the virtual part of large hybrid hybrid events = combined real and virtual (online) events scientific conferences. The international multi-events NANOTEXNOLOGY 2020 and 2021 were hosted on Fostiropoulos' virtual platform.
Personal life
Migration Fostiropoulos was born 20 June 1960 in Krya Vrysi, Pella, Greece, to Anastasios Fostiropoulos and Lemonia Fostiropoulou (née Atmatzidou) the second of three children (Niko, Kosta, Eleni). In 1961 his father emigrated to Mannheim, Germany, where later his wife followed with their two sons when Fostiropoulos was four years old. The family settled in Mannheim-Neckarstadt, very close to its landmark "Alte Feuerwache" (Old Fire Station), which at that time was still the city's main fire station. There, during his primary school years, Fostiropoulos gained insight into the work of the local fire brigade (fire extinguishing, first aid measures...). Five years later his sister Eleni was born. Until they retired his parents Anastasios and Lemonia had been working as labourer and cleaner, respectively. In 2015 they re-immigrated in Greece, together with his sister Eleni and her family. His brother Niko was elected to the city council of Karlsruhe, Germany from 2000 to 2019, and has been the founder and owner of the centre for further education alfatraining since 2005.
Marriage
During his time as research fellow at the Institut für Medienkommunikation (IMK) of the former in Sankt Augustin near Bonn, Fostiropoulos' relationship to his colleague Simone Lahme, a web designer and specialist for e-learning, began on the occasion of the Total Solar eclipse of August 11, 1999, which they had been observing together in Karlsruhe. They married in 2004 and have two children, Timon and Melina.
Education 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 plucked instruments class of and his Gitarrenchor der Städtischen Musikschule Mannheim.
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,Minor Planet: (2533) 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 various jobs during his studies: as classical guitar instructor at , sound engineer for simultaneous translation at Ellerbrock Konferenztechnik, taxi driver in Mannheim, and teaching assistant of Physical Chemistry at Heidelberg University.
First scientific career – "fundamental research" From 1986–88 Fostiropoulos was investigating effects of intermolecular forces in real gases at the Institute of Physical Chemistry, Heidelberg University. One focus was to study the thermodynamic properties of freons in order to substitute them by environmentally compatible substances in refrigerator units.
The historical origin of carbon lamps (1802 – 1960s) carbon lamps by arc (1), contact arc (2) or by resistive heating (3) A well-known method to generate and study atoms, small clusters and big agglomerates (dust particles) of conductive materials (e.g. graphite, metals...) is to thermally evaporate them from rigid rods under low pressure conditions or vacuum. Thereby, either an arc or contact arc is ignited between two such rods (electrodes), or resistive heating of one rod is applied for its electrical evaporation. Particularly, in the 19. century the element carbon had been studied in detail to develop non-degradable graphite electrodes for intensive carbon arc lamp spot light applications (e.g. in cinema projectors). They were invented by Humphry Davy in 1802 and had been in use for more than a hundred years. In the 1960s those methods were revived in order to study the chemistry of carbon vapours in rare-gas atmospheres (He, Ar...), e.g. by William Weltner jr.William Weltner jr. "Spectroscopy of Carbon Vapor Condensed in Rare‐Gas..."
The Heidelberg experiments
In September 1988 a young volunteering student, Bernd Wagner,Bernd Wagner had finished his studies as senior high school teacher and has been working since then as physics teacher in the Cologne area. He did not co-author any of the three C60 publications of 1990 and was not considered when the C60 synthesis had been filed with an US patent office. joined the "Dust Group" of astrophysicist Hugo Fechtig, director at Max Planck Institute for Nuclear Physics (MPIK), for a few weeks. There, under the supervision of Fechtig's assistant Wolfgang Krätschmer Wagner had been performing such carbon vapour experiments using the contact arc method (2) when he accidentally changed the pressure conditions. As a result, he received traces of carbon dust with additional weak IR absorption features unknown to him. However, the result was not considered further, when Wagner left, but was deemed "impurities from pump oil""Verunreinigungen durch Pumpenöl" or simply "junk"."It's junk!" Wolfgang Krätschmer in BBC HORIZON episode "Molecules with sunglasses", 20/01/1992, BBC_LSFA479X
In January 1989 Fostiropoulos joined Fechtig's group, where he picked up the "accidental" experiment. After a few weeks assessment period he decided to study as part of his Ph.D. the three kinds of thermal evaporation processes in detail and, subsequently, he developed new process parameters for each. Accordingly, in 1989 Fostiropoulos was the first to synthesize C60 the first molecular carbon modification applying initially a contact arc process (2) with specific experimental conditions for fast electrode degradation, hence, accelerated carbon evaporation. Moreover, he developed a method to sinter graphite rods from commercially available "amorphous" 13C carbon dust. Applying a resistive heating process (3) and using such "isotopic" graphite rods, a few days before New Year's Eve 1989, he synthesized for the first time an unusual material which contained an exotic species: "isotopic" 13C60, From that he proved the existence of an all-carbon molecule with icosahedral "platonic" symmetry and truncated icosahedron "archimedean" shape, i.e. that of Kroto et al. 1985 predicted football molecule: C60 "Buckminsterfullerene"
The prehistory of the truncated icosahedronPythagoras of Samos (Πυθαγόρας ὁ Σάμιος, 580-496 BC) knew all five regular solids: tetrahedron, cube, octahedron, dodecahedron, and icosahedron. Theaetetus of Athens (Θεαίτητος ὁ Ἀθηναῖος, 417-369 BC) was probably the first to prove that there are exactly five regular solids. His contemporary Platon (Πλάτων, 427-347 BC) assigned the solids to five elements: fire, earth, air, ether/cosmos, and water, respectively.
Archimedes of Syracus (Ἀρχιμήδης ὁ Συρακόσιος, 287-212 BC) mathematically described convex polyhedra based on the five regular solids. There are 13 Archimedean solids in total, including the truncated icosahedron. They consist of regular faces and satisfy the global uniformity of the vertices.
In his work De quinque corporibus regularibus written in the 1480s or early 1490s, Piero della Francesca quotes the aforementioned ancient Greek mathematicians and sketches the truncated icosahedron. A few years later Leonardo da Vinci illustrates the εἰκοσάεδρον ἀποτετμημένον κενόν (truncated hollow icosahedron) in perspective (see grafic on the right) in the book Divina Proportione of his mathematics teacher Luca Pacioli, which he completed in 1498.
In his effort to push the production yield further he then focused his research on the simple arc method (1) that culminated in 1990 in a yield of > 1 gram per day achieved by a robust and highly efficient arc process. As the fullerene material, however, was still embedded in the generated soot Fostiropoulos developed two possible extraction methods, either by applying thermal evaporation to expel the molecular species C60, C70... from the soot under vacuum conditions or by dispersing the soot in benzene where only fullerenes dissolve. The extracted powder of this "natural" pure fullerene mixture was analyzed by optical (UV to IR) as well as mass spectroscopy where also the "American football" shaped C70 was found. From the powder he could grow for the first time ultra-thin C60 films by vacuum thermal evaporation and watch the formation of hexagonal crystals from the "wine-red" benzene solution. From subsequent thin film chromatography studiesFirst thin film chromatography studies on the fullerene mixture Fostiropoulos began at Max Planck Institute for Medical Research January 1990 together with former students of his in the group of Heinz August Staab the then institute's director and president of the Max Planck Society the wine-red colour turned out to originate from the 10% C70 fraction in the natural fullerene mixture. The mass density of the novel Carbon crystals was determined experimentally as well as theoretically using data from a TEM crystal analysis measured for the first time in collaboration with ,Prof. Werner Kühlbrandt, Director at Max Planck Institute of Biophysics EMBL Heidelberg, where the van der Waals diameter of the molecular "football" was determined: dC60= 1.0 nm. In collaboration with Hans Hermann Eysel, Institute of Inorganic Chemistry, Heidelberg University, for the first time Raman spectra of C60 have been measured.