Christoph Schultheiss has started his career in 1975 at the University Erlangen, Germany in the field of hyperfine interaction by measuring the temperature dependence of the electrical field gradient at nucleus site of indium bismuth alloys. In 1979 he received his Ph.D. by describing for the first time the well known pseudospark, a gas discharge system which produces magnetically self-pinched electron beams which can be used to ablate target materials. In 1983 he changed to the Kernforschungszentrum Karlsruhe, Germany (now Forschungszentrum Karlsruhe). Here he created a further development of the pseudospark the so called channel spark which in many aspects has improved performances. Nowadays the channel spark is considered to be a tool for low cost production of superconducting cables etc.. He actually is the coordinator of an international project to coat medical implants with bio-compatible materials using channel spark technique.

Parallel to coating work in 1995 he started with the support of Russian colleagues a fragmentation method for “hard materials” based on under water, high power, high voltage spark discharges. During these developments high performance pulse generators (Marx generator) with repetition rates up to 20 Hz and life times of 100 million shots became available, which now play a role in industrial scale electroporation work.