Prof. Dr. Dr. h.c. Jan-Kristian Krüger receives the IVW Plaque of Honor

At the works meeting on 03 April 2024, Prof. Dr. Dr. h.c. Jan-Kristian Krüger received the IVW Plaque of Honor for his services as a visiting professor at the Leibniz-Institut für Verbundwerkstoffe. At the award ceremony, Professor Breuer said: "Professor Krüger has contributed to our current work in an exceptionally friendly and collegial manner, especially in materials science. He has helped us to gain new insights with the help of the optical measurement method he developed, temperature-modulated optical refractometry, he has enabled numerous publications, supported our young scientists and tirelessly helped with research work in an exemplary manner. Our institute can feel enriched and greatly honored by his contribution!"

Professor Krüger, born in 1941, graduated in physics from Saarland University in 1970. From 1970 to 1973, he completed his doctorate at the Faculty of Physical Chemistry at the University of Regensburg. In 1974, he returned to Saarbrücken as a postdoc at Saarland University. In 1986 he habilitated and in 1993 he was awarded a visiting professorship at Saarland University. He is one of the founders of the Laboratoire Européen de Recherches Universitaires de Sarre et Lorraine (LERUSL) and the integrated bi-national degree course in physics between the Université Henri Poincaré de Nancy and Saarland University, which has even been a tri-national degree course (Germany, Luxembourg, France) since 2001. He turned 65 in 2006, but did not retire, instead becoming a visiting professor at the University of Luxembourg. In 2008, he became a member of the Scientific Council of the Université Henri Poincaré in Nancy, and in 2012 a member of the University Council of the Université de Lorraine. In 2019, he became a visiting professor at the ivw. His areas of research include interface-induced structure formation, structural phase transitions, the glass state and the glass transition, fields that are particularly relevant to polymer composites. He has published an extraordinary amount on his research work, with 1430 citations of his scientific work listed in Scopus. Professor Krüger has deservedly received several prizes and honors in his lifetime, including an honorary doctorate from the University of Nancy, the Deutsche Bank Foundation Prize in Luxembourg and the Excellence Prize of the Saar-Lor-Lux-West Palatinate-Wallonia Greater Region.