Katharina-Sophie Flashar

Katarina-Sophie Flashar is a physicist and has been working as a doctoral student in the CO₂UPLED junior research group led by Verena Streibel since 2024. Her research focuses in particular on the development and production of novel photocathode materials. Semiconductors made of transition metal oxynitrides and oxysulfides are of particular interest due to their suitable band structure for hydrogen splitting and CO₂ reduction. In addition, she develops measurement protocols for X-ray spectroscopy under reaction conditions. This approach will enable her and her colleagues to understand reaction mechanisms at electrode and catalyst surfaces and interfaces.

Katarina-Sophie Flashar completed her bachelor’s degree in physics at Ruhr University Bochum with stays abroad at Université Paris-Sud (Paris-Saclay), Paris, France, and at the Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul, Porto Alegre, Brazil (2016-2020). For her master’s degree, she transferred to the Technical University of Munich, where she completed her master’s degree in condensed matter physics (2020-2024). Her Master’s thesis at the Walter Schottky Institute focused on photoelectrochemical water splitting, synthesis of energy materials and protection layers. At the end of her studies, a semester abroad at Tohoku University, Sendai, Japan, enabled her to conduct research on the directional solidification of silicon.

Katharina-Sophie Flasher has expertise in the fabrication and characterization of thin films and in (photo)electrochemistry, as well as in X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) and the atomic layer deposition (ALD) process.