The German Research Foundation (Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft DFG) has announced its plan to establish a new research group: "Proximity-induced correlation effects in low-dimensional structures", under the leadership of Chemnitz University of Technology. 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 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 heterosystem and to manipulate them in a targeted manner", said Prof. Dr. Christoph Tegenkamp from Chemnitz U, spokesperson for the new group. 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".
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.