ASTRONOMY

The German Research Foundation (german: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft, DFG) is establishing the new research group "Proximity-induced correlation effects in low-dimensional structures" under the leadership of Chemnitz University of Technology. This was decided by the DFG's Joint Committee on September 23, 2021. According to the DFG, the research group will be funded with approximately 3.2 million euros plus a 22 percent program allowance for indirect costs during the first four-year funding period. The spokesperson is Prof. Dr. Christoph Tegenkamp, head of the professorship of Solid Surface Analysis at the Chemnitz University of Technology.

“I am very pleased about the establishment of the research group under the leadership of the Chemnitz University of Technology. This is an outstanding success for our university, the Faculty of Natural Sciences, and all those involved – whom I congratulate very warmly and thank equally warmly for their great commitment. I am firmly convinced that the research group will contribute significantly to strengthening the core competence Materials and Smart Systems as well as its radiance at and outside the Chemnitz University of Technology," said the President, Prof. Dr. Gerd Strohmeier.

The future research work of the interdisciplinary DFG research group will focus on atomically thin carbon films such as graphene. "These two-dimensional materials and their heterostructures are currently being intensively researched worldwide, as they exhibit unusual and novel electronic properties. The goal of the scientists in our DFG research group is to investigate the correlation effects occurring in a prototypical 2D hetero system and to manipulate them in a targeted manner," Prof. Tegenkamp says. This involves specially fabricated epitaxial graphene layers on the semiconductor material silicon carbide. "These research should provide further foundations for novel quantum materials with tailored properties and their application, for example in spintronics or electronics," says the spokesman for the DFG research group.

The research group includes scientists from the Professorship of Analysis of Solid Surfaces (Head: Prof. Dr. Christoph Tegenkamp), the Professorship of Experimental Physics with a focus on Technical Physics (Head: Prof. Dr. Thomas Seyller), and the Professorship of Theoretical Physics of Quantum Mechanical Processes and Systems (Head: Prof. Dr. Sibylle Gemming). They cooperate with researchers from the Physikalisch-Technische Bundesanstalt Braunschweig, the Max Planck Institute for Solid State Research in Stuttgart, and researchers from the Universities of Göttingen, Hamburg, and Regensburg.