This year the department’s industrial familiarisation placement takes place at the Centre for Collective Use of Research Equipment “Diagnostics of Semiconductor Materials, Structures and Device Systems” at the Institute of Semiconductor Physics of the NAS of Ukraine. Students get to know and work on scanning probe microscopy, Raman and IR spectroscopy, high-resolution X-ray diffractometry and other facilities. The placement programme is supported by a DAAD grant from the German Academic Exchange Service.