Fabian von Rohr receives the Ruzicka Prize 2021
Dr. Fabian von Rohr, currently a Professor at the Department of Chemistry at the University of Zurich, is being awarded the Ruzicka Prize 2021 for his work on the discovery of quantum materials by combining chemical and physical design principles.
Quantum materials are substances that display emergent collective quantum phenomena, such as superconductivity or magnetic ordering. They represent critical building blocks for future technologies, yet they are difficult to discover, synthesize, and characterize. To meet these challenges, electronic calculations, crystallographic knowledge, physical measurement methods and chemical intuition are essential.
Fabian von Rohr has combined all of these into a holistic, interdisciplinary design concept: with his group, he is identifying functional materials by understanding the interplay between composition, structure, and properties. In this way, he has discovered, for example, a new structure of germanium-selenium (β-GeSe), whose layered structure allows for great chemical variability, and he was able to show through the discovery of the superconductor Nb4Rh2C1-δ that the violation of the Pauli limit cannot always be used as an indicator for an unconventional superconductor. The goal of his research is to discover the most exciting materials and to thereby make them available for future applications.
For more information, please read the portrait on D-CHAB homepage and take a look at the Ruzicka Prize Website.
Fabian von Rohr (*1984) originates from Olten, Solothurn. He studied Interdisciplinary Sciences at ETH Zurich and completed his Master's thesis in solid-state chemistry in the group of Robert J. Cava at Princeton University, USA. In 2014, he completed his PhD on superconductivity in the vicinity of phase boundaries in the laboratories of Reinhard Nesper, ETH Zurich, and Andreas Schilling, University of Zurich (UZH). This was followed by postdoctoral positions at LMU Munich and at Princeton University, USA. In 2017, Fabian von Rohr became a group leader and SNSF Ambizione fellow at UZH. Since 2021, he has led his group as an SNSF Eccellenza Professor at the Department of Chemistry at UZH. In 2022, he will move to the Department of Quantum Matter Physics at the University of Geneva for a position as Associate Professor.