Professor Jindřich Musil of the Faculty of Applied Sciences UWB has passed away

The physicist and expert in plasma technologies and thin-film materials died on Friday, October 31, at the age of 91. His family announced this.

Electromagnetic fields, the propagation of electromagnetic waves, radars, millimetre waves and thermonuclear fusion were the main research topics of scientist and educator Jindřich Musil, who worked at the Faculty of Applied Sciences.

In recent years, his research focused primarily on the development of new advanced nanocomposite coatings and also on how to apply these thin layers. Nanocomposite coatings are used to improve the surface properties of materials, for example, to make them harder, more resistant to wear, corrosion or high temperatures. They are used in industry, electronics and even in healthcare, where they help protect implants or surgical instruments.

Professor Jindřich Musil was born on 19 January 1934. In 1966, he received his Ph.D. and in 1979, his Dr.Sc. degree in physical and mathematical sciences from the Czechoslovak Academy of Sciences in Prague. He became a professor of applied physics at the University of West Bohemia in Pilsen in 1995.

In the course of his over fifty-year academic career, he has received several prestigious awards. He received the State Prize of Czechoslovakia for the development of plasma technologies for the creation of thin films in Czechoslovakia (1984) and three physics awards from the Czechoslovak Academy of Sciences: for the interaction of high-power microwaves with plasma (1973), for a high-power pulsed photodissociation iodine laser (1986) and for the reactive deposition of stoichiometric and non-stoichiometric titanium nitride layers (1990).

In 2014, he received the R.F. Bunshah Award for his pioneering contribution to the development of advanced nanocomposite coatings with increased hardness and crack resistance from the Advanced Surface Engineering Division of the American Vacuum Society. In 2022, at the 18th International Conference on Plasma Surface Engineering in Erfurt, Germany, he received the International Leading Scientist Award for his long-term research activities. In 2023, he then received the K-T Rie Award for his long-term research activities at the 13th Asian-European International Conference on Plasma Surface Engineering in Busan, South Korea.

Musil has published more than 280 peer-reviewed scientific articles, which have been cited more than 8,850 times excluding self-citations and his h-index is 48. He co-authored one book, three monographs, ten book chapters and 43 patents. He delivered 125 lectures at leading international conferences abroad.