HZB hosts Humboldt Research Award Winner Alexei Gruverman
An award by Humboldt-foundation enables Professor Alexei Gruverman to visit the HZB institute "Functional oxides for energy efficient information technology". © privat
Professor Alexei Gruverman was granted a Humboldt Research Award in October 2020. Due to the COVID pandemic, he could not travel until this year. For a few months he is now hosted by Helmholtz-Zentrum Berlin at the Institute “Functional oxides for energy efficient information technology”.
The renowned award is endowed with 60 000 Euros and is presented annually by the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation to outstanding scientists from abroad to support collaborative projects with researchers in Germany.
“We are very much honored and happy to welcome Alexei Gruverman at the HZB. He is a worldwide leading scientist in the field of nanoscale ferroelectrics. We will further develop our cooperation with him on several topics”, says Prof. Catherine Dubourdieu, head of the institute “Functional oxides for energy efficient information technology” at HZB.
Professor Alexei Gruverman is a Charles Bessey Professor at the Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of Nebraska-Lincoln, USA. His research includes diverse scientific subjects from nanoscale static and dynamic properties of ferroic materials, to electronic properties of polar surfaces, and electromechanical properties of biomaterials.
The Humboldt Research Award recognizes his outstanding research achievements in the field of fundamental studies of nanoscale physical phenomena in a wide range of materials using a variety of scanning probe microscopy (SPM) methods. Gruverman has pioneered the development of piezoresponse force microscopy (PFM), which since its inception has become a method of choice in both academic and industrial groups for the investigation of the nanoscale properties of ferroelectric materials and structures. Other major scientific accomplishments include the manipulation of ferroelectric domains at the nanoscale, the development of an approach for fast switching dynamics in ferroelectric capacitors, the demonstration of the tunneling electroresistance effect in ferroelectrics and nanoscale studies of electromechanical behavior of biological systems.
His current research topics include the emergence of the ferroelectric ordering in 2D electronic materials and the exploration of the physical mechanism of their polarization-coupled transport properties.
Gruverman plans to spend this first stay associated with the Humboldt Research Award in Germany at the HZB in Berlin and NamLab in Dresden.
- Two precision mechanics from HZB are Berlin's best traineesTwo former apprentices from the HZB workshop have achieved something remarkable: Fiete Buchin and Edgar Lunk completed their training as precision mechanics, taking first and second place in all of Berlin. In this interview, they share what it took to reach the top, what makes their training special, and the advice they would give to future apprentices.
- BESSY II: Phosphorus chains – a 1D material with 1D electronic propertiesFor the first time, a team at BESSY II has succeeded in demonstrating the one-dimensional electronic properties in phosphorus. The samples consisted of short chains of phosphorus atoms that self-organise at specific angles on a silver substrate. Through sophisticated analysis, the team was able to disentangle the contributions of these differently aligned chains. This revealed that the electronic properties of each chain are indeed one-dimensional. Calculations predict an exciting phase transition to be expected as soon as these chains are more closely packed. While material consisting of individual chains with longer distances is semiconducting, a very dense chain structure would be metallic.
- Did marine life in the palaeocene use a compass?Some ancient marine organisms produced mysterious magnetic particles of unusually large size, which can now be found as fossils in marine sediments. An international team has succeeded in mapping the magnetic domains on one of such ‘giant magnetofossils’ using a sophisticated method at the Diamond X-ray source. Their analysis shows that these particles could have allowed these organisms to sense tiny variations in both the direction and intensity of the Earth’s magnetic field, enabling them to geolocate themselves and navigate across the ocean. The method offers a powerful tool for magnetically testing whether putative biological iron oxide particles in Mars samples have a biogenic origin.