Introduction to Kai Siegbahn's memorial issue

Kai Siegbahn is mainly known to the afterworld for his development of spectroscopies which have provided a detailed understanding of the electronic structure of atoms, molecules and condensed matter. These spectroscopies are based on the discoveries made by him and his collaborators in the beginning of the 1960s which led to a Nobel prize in physics for Kai in 1981. The collection of papers in the present volume illustrate the present status of the many flourishing aspects of electron spectroscopy which have developed as a result of his initial ideas and their background in nuclear physics experimentation.