\chapter*{Acknowledgment}
\addcontentsline{toc}{chapter}{Acknowledgment}

First of all, I would like to thank my official advisors Prof. Dr. Bernd Stritzker and Prof. Dr. Kai Nordlund for accepting me as a doctoral candidate at their chairs at the University of Augsburg and the University of Helsinki.
I am gratefull to Prof. Dr. Bernd Stritzker who, although being an experimental scientist, gave me the opportunity to work on a rather theoretical field.
The working environment providing insight on problems dealt with in this thesis from the point of view of an experimentalist were of great importance contributing to the success of this work.
Furthermore, I would like to thank Prof. Dr. Kai Nordlund for his expertise in the field of atomistic simulations and the possibility to repeatedly visit his group in Helsinki.
Much progress of this study is owed to the regrettably few but fruitful discussions and explanations by electronic mail, within short meetings on conferences and, of course, during my long-term stays in the nice capital of Finland.

Due to the official supervising of both of them, participation in a special research fellowship of the Bayerische Forschungsstiftung was enabled providing financial support for the first three years.
Next to living costs, travel expenses for scientific conferences as well as my stays in Helsinki were unbureaucratically taken over by the research foundation.

I owe my deepest gratitude to Prof. Dr. J\"org K. N. Lindner guiding me through my first time of scientific working already beginning with the diploma thesis.
I am heartly thankful for his frequent encouragements and the confidence he has shown enabling a greatly independent research and the improvement of respective skills.
Furthermore, his experiences in the materials system covered in this study and fine grasp with regard to scientific routines were of great help for this work.

Getting appointed to a professorship at the University of Paderborn, it was also him, who initiated a collaboration with the local theory group under the direction of Prof. Dr. Wolf Gero Schmidt.
I would like to thank him for six month of financial support, which allowed me to extend my research period, as well as for his helpful contributions to common articles and respective publishing procedures.
More importantly, the collaboration involved further investigations based on first-principles calculations, which improved the quality of this work to a great extent.
At this point, I would like to express special thanks to Dr. Eva Rauls.
The extended version of this thesis would not have been possible without   as well as her expertice in 


Ich glaube, die beiden sind sich nicht bewusst in welchem masse sie mich durch neues material als auch durch entgegenbrachte begeisterung ermutigt haben und zur verbesserung der arbeit beigetragen haben.


thanks for 6 month of financial support.
More importantly ... first-principles , whcih greatly improved quality of the current study.
Especially Dr. Eva Rauls, who .....
Dr. Susanne Sanna is greatly acknowledged for technical support.

another 2 month and various hiwi contracts involving tutorships freedomly teached solid state physics ... thanks to Stritzker again!


... Rolf Anders ...
Ralf Utermann from EDV.

... diploma room ...

Stritzkers group ...

... university ... studium universales ... meta, berthold, erika, michael, leo, katja

... lebenspartner ...

... family (vererbung sozialer zugehoerigkeit) ...


