Prof Dr Klaus-Werner Benz on the occasion of his 70 th birthday Klaus-Werner Benz was born on January 1 st , 1938 in Berlin. He grew up in Stuttgart, where he studied physics at the University of Stuttgart and received his Diploma degree under the supervision of Prof Heinz Pick in 1963. The scientific carrier of K W Benz begun at the research institute of the Deutsche Bundespost in Darmstadt. There he was integrated in a research team led by Dr H Salow which developed the first semiconductor laser in Germany working continiously at nitrogen temperature. After two years he went back to the Institute of Physics at the University of Stuttgart where he obtained his doctorate under the supervision of Prof Hans Christian Wolf in 1970. Two years later he became head of the laboratory for semiconductor crystal growth at the 4 th Institute of Physics led by Prof Manfred Pilkuhn. In his Stuttgart time Klaus-Werner Benz familiarised with crystal growth and determination of structure/property relationships of crystals.
In his so-called "Crystal Lab" he established various growth methods like the travelling heater method (THM) for the growth of semiconductor bulk materials and the liquid phase epitaxy (LPE) for the growth of III-V semiconductor layers. As a physicist he had always in mind that a thorough understanding of crystal growth requires both the study of the fundametals of the growth process and the growth experiment. In 1982 he obtained the Habilitation degree at the University of Duisburg.
Four years later, he was appointed as professor of experimental physics at the University-GH Paderborn. His former activities in crystal growth were extended, whereas the crystal growth under microgravity played an important role.