Jan Weszka, Ph.D., Professor at the Polish Academy of Sciences and the Silesian University (1949–2015)

On March 4, 2015, at the age of 65, Professor Jan Weszka passed away. He was an outstanding scientist, educator, and a man of great kindness, integrity, and nobility. From the beginning of his professional career, he was affiliated with institutions of the Polish Academy of Sciences, initially with the Department of Solid-State Physics, and later with the Center of Polymer and Carbon Materials of the Polish Academy of Sciences (CMPW PAN) in Zabrze. Starting in 2006, he also worked at the Faculty of Mechanical Engineering and Technology at the Silesian University of Technology in Gliwice.

Jan Weszka was born in 1949 in Łaziska Średnie. In 1973, he earned a master’s degree in solid-state physics from the Faculty of Mathematics, Physics, and Chemistry at the University of Silesia in Katowice. Already as a student and a scholarship recipient of the Polish Academy of Sciences, he collaborated with the Institute of Solid-State Physics of the Polish Academy of Sciences (ZFCS PAN), where he began his professional career in 1973 as an assistant. In 1981, he defended his doctoral dissertation titled “Studies of the dynamics of ZnP₂ and CdP₂ crystal lattices using Raman light scattering spectroscopy,” completed under the supervision of Prof. Witold Żdanowicz, Ph.D., at the Institute of Physics of the Polish Academy of Sciences in Warsaw.

In 2003, at the Faculty of Mathematics, Physics, and Chemistry of the University of Silesia, he earned a postdoctoral degree in physical sciences, specializing in solid-state physics, optics, and scattering, based on his postdoctoral dissertation titled “The Application of Raman Scattering to the Study of Network Dynamics in Crystalline and Amorphous Semiconductor Precursors of Cadmium with Arsenic and Indium with Selenium.”

Professor Jan Weszka was a distinguished specialist in the fields of semiconductor physics, optics, materials engineering, and polymer physics; the author of dozens of publications and monographs; a reviewer of doctoral and master’s theses; and the advisor for two completed doctoral dissertations. Professor Weszka’s research interests focused on physics-related issues concerning the tuning of the optoelectronic properties of polymers and molecular materials for use in polymer, molecular, and hybrid photovoltaic cells. In his work, he focused on investigating the influence of the technological conditions of the layer deposition process on the structure, morphology, and properties of thin polymer and molecular layers.

Throughout his professional career, he held many positions of responsibility. From 1989 to 1992, he served as Head of the Thin Films Laboratory at the Institute of Solid State Physics, and from 1996 to 1998 as Deputy Director of the Institute. From 1981 to 1992, he was Secretary of the Scientific Council of the Institute of Solid State Physics, Polish Academy of Sciences.

From 1999 onward, throughout his entire tenure at the Center of Polymer and Carbon Materials, Professor Jan Weszka headed the Laboratory of Polymer Materials for Optoelectronics and Nonlinear Optics, and from 2002 to 2011 he served as Deputy Director for General Affairs.

While working as a professor at the Faculty of Mechanical Engineering and Technology at the Silesian University of Technology in Gliwice, he headed the Department of Biomedical Materials Engineering beginning in 2011.

He received many prestigious awards and honors, including the Gold Cross of Merit.

He was a kind, friendly, and universally liked colleague, always cheerful and ready to help as a coworker and supervisor. For us, his colleagues, he was an irreplaceable scientist, manager, colleague, friend, and a wonderful person who will remain forever in our memories.

Bożena Jarząbek, Ph.D., Eng.
and colleagues from the Laboratory of Polymer Materials of Optoelectronics and Nonlinear Optics
at the CMPW of the Polish Academy of Sciences in Zabrze