This project is suspended.
The physicist Rüdiger Klingeler from the Kirchhoff Institute of Physics at Heidelberg University has been awarded a prestigious “Mega Grant” by the Russian government. Mega Grants are the largest research grants awarded by the Russian government. In a competitive process with 465 applicants from all disciplines, 43 international leading scientists, among them three researchers from physics and six from Germany are grant recipients. The actual grant awarded to Prof. Klingeler is devoted to establishing a new laboratory on “Functional Quantum Materials” at the University of Science and Technology „MISiS“ in Moscow, where new infrastructure will be set-up and an international research team will be established. In close collaboration with Prof. Klingeler’s work group at Heidelberg University, the consortium aims to exploit the particular quantum nature of novel materials as a new route towards innovative materials and devices with unprecedented properties that are a prerequisite for quantum technologies.
The Mega Grant project will identify, investigate, and tune materials whose properties are governed by quantum cooperative effects. It is indeed the quantum nature of matter which manifests itself in the emergence of superconductivity, magnetism, ferroelectricity and related phenomena such as quantum liquids, charge density waves, multiferroic and topological effects, and which can bring information and energy-saving technologies to a new level. A particular focus will be on controlling quantum ground states through structural effects exploiting doping, high-pressure, and magnetostriction as well as dimensionality tuning. In general, the project will yield the microscopic mechanisms governing electronic quantum ground states in solids so that technologically relevant quantum phases can be identified and tuned. The results will enable the exploitation of new functions evolving in quantum materials and open a broad field of research relevant both for fundamental and applied sciences.
The University of Science and Technology MISiS has a long tradition in condensed matter physics with the Nobel Prize winner Alexei Abrikosov being one of the leading and most prominent scientists. The Mega grant project continues a long term scientific collaboration between Prof. Klingeler’s group in Heidelberg and the Russian team around Prof. Vassiliev, which in the last decade has already yielded a variety of nine research grants and more than 50 joint publications. The international research team also includes Prof. Mahmoud Abdel-Hafiez from Uppsala University in Sweden, who worked as a Postdoctoral researcher in Heidelberg in 2018 before leaving to Harvard and then Uppsala.
The award winner Rüdiger Klingeler is Professor for Experimental Physics at Heidelberg University. Having graduated at the University of Cologne, he worked in Aachen, Toulouse and Dresden before moving to Heidelberg in 2010. Among a variety of research project, he has headed several large scale European and national research networks. Prof. Klingeler’s main research interests focus on unusual ordering phenomena and quantum magnetism. He applies a materials-based approach to investigate fundamental aspects of magnetic interactions and electronic correlations with a clear focus on basic research. Particular emphasis is set on quantum systems like molecular magnets and on quantum ground states, such as unconventional superconductivity, electronic nematic order or quantum magnetism which challenge standard theory and hence enable extending our understanding of quantum many-body systems. In addition, Prof. Klingeler is running a laboratory on lithium-ion batteries, which demonstrates the links between fundamental and applied research.
