Harald Brune

Short CV

Harald Brune is Full Professor at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Lausanne (EPFL), Switzerland. In 1989, he obtained his Diploma in Physics from the Ludwig-Maximilians Universität München and in 1992 his PhD in Physical Chemistry under the guidance of Profs. Gerhard Ertl (2007 Nobel Laureate in Chemistry) and Jürgen Behm at the Fritz Haber Institute of the Max Planck Society in Berlin. He has joined the group of Prof. Klaus Kern as postdoctoral Fellow at EPFL, where he earned the Latsis Award 1996 for his studies on the self-assembly of metal nanostructures at metal surfaces. In 1998, Harald Brune has been nominated Reader (MER) in Nanophysics at EPFL, has received an offer for a Chair (C4) at Philipps-Universität Marburg and accepted the counteroffer of EPFL. He is Fellow of the American Physical Society and member of the research council of the Swiss National Science Foundation.

Selected Awards

• 2011, Fellow American Physical Society
• 1996, Latsis Prize of International Latsis Foundation

Research Interests

We are interested in the study and engineering of novel physical and chemical properties of nanostructures at single crystal surfaces and of interfaces between atomic layers. The nanostructures are either created by self-assembly at template surfaces or in the gas phase from where they are size-selected and soft-landed onto the substrate of interest. The atomic layers are metals, oxides, graphene, and hexagonal Boron Nitride. Atomic scale control during the growth and in-situ analysis of magnetic, catalytic, and electronic properties aim at a fundamental understanding with the perspective of atomic scale engineering of functionality. Major directions are quantum magnetism, materials for ultra-high density magnetic information storage, heterogeneous catalysis at surfaces and on small metal clusters, novel low-dimensional materials for electronic devices.

Selected Publications

• Ouazi, S.; Vlaic, S.; Rusponi, S.; Moulas, G.; Buluschek, P.; Halleux, K.; Bornemann, S.; Mankovsky, S.; Minár, J.; Staunton, J. B.; Ebert, H.; Brune, H.: Atomic-scale engineering of magnetic anisotropy of nanostructures through interfaces and interlines. Nature communications 3, 2012, 1313.

• Papagno, Marco; Rusponi, Stefano; Sheverdyaeva, Polina Makarovna; Vlaic, Sergio; Etzkorn, Markus; Pacilé, Daniela; Moras, Paolo; Carbone, Carlo; Brune, Harald: Large band gap opening between graphene Dirac cones induced by Na adsorption onto an Ir superlattice. ACS nano 6 (1), 2012, 199--204.

• Otte, Alexander F.; Ternes, Markus; Bergmann, Kirsten von; Loth, Sebastian; Brune, Harald; Lutz, Christopher P.; Hirjibehedin, Cyrus F.; Heinrich, Andreas J.: The role of magnetic anisotropy in the Kondo effect. Nature Physics 4 (11), 2008, 847-850.

• Weiss, N.; Cren, T.; Epple, M.; Rusponi, S.; Baudot, G.; Rohart, S.; Tejeda, A.; Repain, V.; Rousset, S.; Ohresser, P.; Scheurer, F.; Bencok, P.; Brune, H.: Uniform Magnetic Properties for an Ultrahigh-Density Lattice of Noninteracting Co Nanostructures. Physical review letters 95 (15), 2005.

• Gambardella, P.; Rusponi, S.; Veronese, M.; Dhesi, S. S.; Grazioli, C.; Dallmeyer, A.; Cabria, I.; Zeller, R.; Dederichs, P. H.; Kern, K.; Carbone, C.; Brune, H.: Giant magnetic anisotropy of single cobalt atoms and nanoparticles. Science (New York, N.Y.) 300 (5622), 2003, 1130-1133.

• Rusponi, S.; Cren, T.; Weiss, N.; Epple, M.; Buluschek, P.; Claude, L.; Brune, H.: The remarkable difference between surface and step atoms in the magnetic anisotropy of two-dimensional nanostructures. Nature materials 2 (8), 2003, 546-551.

• Riedo, Elisa; Lévy, Francis; Brune, Harald: Kinetics of Capillary Condensation in Nanoscopic Sliding Friction. Physical review letters 88 (18), 2002.

• Brune, H.; Giovannini, Marcella; Bromann, Karsten; Kern, Klaus: Self-organized growth of nanostructure arrays on strain-relief patterns. Nature 394 (6692), 1998, 451-453.