The International Center for Advanced Studies of Energy Conversion jointly with the SFB1633 organized a Summer School from October 12-16, 2025 on the topic “State of the Art Methods in Surface Dynamics”. The Summer School was organized by Oliver Bünermann and Tim Schäfer.

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.

Invited speakers each gave two 45 min presentations. A tutorial lecture on the fundamental principles and methods of their work was followed by a seminar that covers their current research and the state of the art in electrosynthesis.