Thorsten Kampen is product manager for electron spectroscopy at the SPECS Surface Nano Analysis GmbH and lecturer at the Department of Solid State Physics of the Technical University Berlin, Germany. After having obtained his Ph.D. from the University of Duisburg, he moved on to work at the Technical University of Chemnitz and then in the Molecular Physics Group of the Fritz-Haber-Institute of the Max-Planck-Society in Berlin. His assignments included research stays in the US and Japan. On the national level, Dr. Kampen was involved in projects of the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft DFG.