Fabian Paschke

Since summer 2022 I am a postdoctoral researcher in the Atom and Molecule Manipulation Group of Leo Gross at IBM Research Europe in Rueschlikon. My work covers the experimental investigation and manipulation of individual nanostructures on surfaces - on atomic length scales. The focus lies on the application of scanning probe methods like scanning tunneling microscopy (STM) or atomic force microscopy (AFM) to synthesize hitherto elusive molecules in order to explore novel structural, electronic or magnetic properties. The research contributes to the fields of on-surface synthesis, carbon-based magnetism, bottom-up fabrication of molecular networks, and pushing the capabilities of STM.

In 2013 I received my Bachelor’s Degree in Physics at the University of Konstanz (Germany) under supervision of Guido Burkard, working on the magnetic-field dependence of bound states in graphene nanoribbons. This was followed by an experimental internship in the group of Harald Brune at the EPFL in Lausanne (Switzerland) where I studied the optical properties of nano-sized metal clusters in matrix-assisted absorption spectroscopy. I obtained my Master’s Degree in Physics in 2016 at the University of Konstanz (Germany) in the group of Mikhail Fonin, where I started to focus on scanning tunneling microscopy to investigate individual, surface-adsorbed single-molecule magnets.

For my doctoral research I stayed in the group of Mikhail Fonin, and received my PhD in physics at the University of Konstanz (Germany) early in 2022. The research focused on the investigation and manipulation of electronic and magnetic states in polynuclear single-molecule magnets, as well as on local properties of 2D (superconducting) heterostructures to serve as functional substrates. The electrospray deposition method and scanning probe methods were accompanied by frequent x-ray absorption spectroscopy measurements that were performed at the Swiss Light Source in the Paul-Scherrer-Institut in Switzerland.

Related to my PhD work I obtained two best poster prizes on international conferences (2018+2019) as well as the Airbus Forschungspreis Claude Dornier (2023) for my dissertation.